My Girl
by alebrewer
Summary: D'Hoffryn isn't happy with the destruction of magic and decides that Faith and Xander are going to be his tools to change things, sending them back to their younger lives in Sunnydale. AU Time travel, Prequel,PeggySue, Language and Violence.
1. Chapter 1

Not canon compliant, truth be told plays somewhat fast and loose with canon after the end of the TV show, BTVS owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and Dark Horse comics. This is a PeggySue. If you don't like time travel do overs, thank you for clicking through and giving it a try anyway.

Chapter 1

Faith used her left arm to lever herself into a sitting position wincing as ribs ground against each other.

She toggled her radio, "Overwatch, tangos are clear Foxtrot X-ray requesting immediate medical assist and transport." Getting no response, she tried again. "Overwatch, this is Foxtrot X-ray. Do you Copy?"

"Time to call for back up, Boy-Toy." She said taking stock. It wasn't good, they'd managed to kill the terrorists and the demon they were working with, but had taken a beating – and whatever had blown up at the end, had hit like a claymore – the explosive kind. Legs not working – broken ribs – she pressed her hand against her hip where something had hit below her body armor. Her pants were soaked in blood – not good.

Pulling a field dressing out of the pocket of her fatigue pants she pressed it to the wound shifting her belt to press over it, she tried to focus. "Xand? I'm not getting anybody on the radio you need to call in back up." Not getting a response she turned to her right as well as she could.

Xander lay a few feet away not moving. Faith scrabbled over to him cursing through clenched teeth she had at least a broken ankle if not worse in her legs. "Xander!" she checked him over as best she could, finding that he was breathing shallowly.

"Faith," he said his voice barely a whisper. She checked him for bleeders which there were more than she'd like to see.

"Come on Xan, Dawn will kill me if I don't bring you back in one piece," Faith said with a cough. She reached her hand into the pocket she knew held the satellite phone, hoping she could get a signal as deep in the canyon as they were. When her hand encountered sharp bits and wetness, she carefully pulled what turned out to be broken remnants of the phone.

"Sorry," Xander's thready voice said.

"Damn it," She'd been hurt enough times to know that even with Slayer healing she was in a bad way, her boot had a wet feeling when she moved and she was feeling light headed. Faith leaned over Xander to see if his radio was working better than hers. Several attempts later she stopped as Xander shuddered. She popped her emergency beacon that they had only as last resort since the local authorities would also pick it. Faith sighed in relief when the ELT started to beep and the strobe light flashed.

"Stay with me here Xander." She reached up and brushed his hair back with her increasingly less steady hand. Faith's mind wandered seeing that the tattoo on his left temple was bisected by a grazing cut, Faith wondered if it had still provided him with spider sense, as he used to call it, after the seed was destroyed. She hoped that their support team would come soon. She grasped his hand and thought about how she'd slept holding him the night before. He was so worried about Dawn's health, worried about the arguments he and Dawn had about having kids, but he had still agreed to help her on this job, a job she'd taken because although she had inherited Giles estate, it was still tied up in the courts and she needed to eat but didn't want to lean on the strained Slayer network. She shook her head to try to stay focused, she started to feel despair. She carefully leaned down and kissed his brow. "I'm sorry Xander, sorry I pulled you into this. I wish we could have done things different. I wish you could have had the family you needed."

"Granted."

Faith only had a moment to look up and see D'Hoffryn's face before everything faded to black.

"- I guess you'd say, What can make me feel this way? – My Girl, talkin' 'bout my girl" – Xander jerked awake from a brutal nightmare. He reached over and smacked the snooze button on the radio alarm blinking his eyes open. He tried to shake of nightmare and force his eyes to focus – _Hunh_ , he thought, _why would seeing out of both eyes feel wrong?_ Suddenly the dream he'd been having felt so much more real, He remembered Jessie's mom dropping him off last night after he Jessie and Willow had went to see Braveheart, but this morning it was like that was side by side with other memories, much longer memories.

"What the hell?" he asked rhetorically staring at the ceiling.

"Not hell, just the Hellmouth," said an amused voice in the corner. Xander's eyes snapped around as he threw himself out of the bed into a defensive stance – and almost ended up in a heap on the floor between his eyes feeding him information he wasn't used to and the instincts of a taller man telling his teenage body how to move. "Nice moves, defender of man." D'Hoffryn said chuckling.

"What do you want?" Xander asked, his fourteen-year-old self shaking inside as the adult Xander moved slowly towards the bat he knew was next to his desk.

"Peace, Alexander," The demon said holding his hands up. "I'm not real happy with how your world turned out, and not just for the diminished magic. So when a dying wish made by the last chosen Slayer was made with the life blood of the man who thwarted prophesy on her lips, I couldn't resist that much power." The demon waited until Xander stopped moving towards the bat. "I can't change everything without drawing too much notice, but you are the fulcrum upon which I brace my lever. I'm keeping the PTB from noticing this shift and I'll try to keep them from noticing you until much later. I'll also make you off limits to Anya." With a nod, the demon said "Good luck to you and your family," and he was gone.

Xander stood stunned, after a moment, he went and looked at himself in the mirror on the closet door. A skinny kid wearing the gym shorts that he slept in in the summer heat looked back at him. His memories told him it was the summer before freshman year, before he'd found out how bad the world really was, before he'd had to stake Jessie, before everything. He tried to center himself and unsurprisingly had difficulty as the sets of memories fought. Finally after several minutes he was able to quiet his mind. _Was this real_? It felt real and he

knew that D'Hoffryn could fold time or shift people to other dimensions or whatever. Hoping this wasn't the dimension where he ended up a vampire, he took stock of himself, just shy of fifteen, he was kind of gawky. He had an okay build, from swimming at Willow and Jessie's and biking or skateboarding pretty much everywhere, he was in good shape - for a fairly skinny kid. He took a deep breath – and thought his laundry basket was particularly ripe but he could also smell the scented candle in the bathroom and coffee downstairs, through the closed bedroom door. He tightened his fists, letting his mind flow, he could feel the hyena but thankfully it felt like it was in balance, something that he had only achieved towards the end of high school before. He'd have to pay attention though. He was startled out of his musings by the sound of the front door opening.

"Come in Rory," Xander heard his mom say.

"Morning Jessica," his uncle's voice replied.

"Did my idiot husband end up at your place last night?"

"Yeah, he wasn't real clear on what happened just that you were pissed at him and he needed to get out of the house." Uncle Rory said.

"Pissed, I almost shot that son of a bitch. I got a call from my cousin and came home to talk to Tony about it and I walked in to him banging Wendy Thompson – in our bed." His mom said with barely controlled rage. "That tramp ran out and I started chucking things at Tony, so yeah, I'm a little pissed if."

"I was worried it might be something like that. Dave, my buddy that Tony works for asked me if everything was okay last week – said that Tony was taking time off for 'Family' stuff. I hadn't had a chance to ask him about it."

"Family – Family! That no good son –" his mom's voice rose and then she stopped herself.

Xander remembered that his mom hadn't found out that his dad was cheating on her until the middle of his Junior year. By that point she was kind of beaten down about how her marriage had spiraled out of control. In this time, well dad had only gotten injured a little over two years ago so although things weren't great, his dad was working and seemed mostly to be in control.

"You tell him that I will be filing for divorce by the end of the day. This house was my grand parents', he doesn't have a claim to it, I'm not going to be unreasonable in what I ask for child support and alimony. I may want to bugger him with a cattle prod, but I won't beggar him. I want my private life to be my private life so I won't be real loud about details unless he gives me reason to. If he contests it, first thing I will do is make sure Wendy's husband knows what his wife has been doing, then I will hire someone to follow him and if he ever drives drunk again, the cops will get a tip and he'll end up in jail." His mom paused, "Can you make Tony understand that?"

He heard Rory let out a deep breath, "Yeah, Jessica, I'll make him understand that."

"Jessica."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry," silence for almost a minute. "If you need any help with Xander or anything else, let me know."

"I will, and thanks Rory, I'm sorry to have yelled at you."

Xander heard the door open, he stood thinking about how this wasn't what he remembered.

"Alex, are you awake honey?" His mom said from outside the door.

"Yeah Mom." Xander said grabbing a shirt from the dresser. He pulled it on opening the door. There stood his mother looking much younger than the decade and change that separated her from the woman he had seen last summer, in his time.

"Alex -" she paused looking at him, "how much of your uncle and my conversation did you hear?"

Xander looked down for a moment, then looked her in the eye. "Pretty much all of it, I'm sorry Mom," Xander said. Anything further was cut off by his mom wrapping her arms around him.

"No Honey, I'm sorry. I've decided our marriage can't go on, but that doesn't change the fact that he is your father."

Xander tried to suppress his thoughts about his father and how the man would act for the next 10 years.

"I wanted to tell you differently, but I guess we can't change that." Gathering herself and stepping back, her hands still on Xander's shoulders. "This is the biggest change, but there's other things I need to talk to you about." She looked at her watch. "Unfortunately, I have to go take care of some business. I need your help while I'm gone, can you please box up the stuff in the guest room dresser and closet and move it down to the basement?"

Xander looked at his mother.

"We are more than likely having one of my relatives come stay with us for a while. I will tell you about it tonight."

After his mom left Xander showered and grabbed breakfast. Pondering how things changed, lost in thought, Xander started cleaning the kitchen quickly and efficiently not realizing what he was doing until he was halfway through loading the dishwasher. He stopped for a moment and hoped that Mom would assume his change of habits was due to the upheaval in the house.

Thinking of how much his room smelled like a locker room, he quickly started his laundry and then went to the garage to grab some boxes. He started by boxing up the odds and ends in the dresser. He was carrying the last load of stuff down as he heard the washer buzz. Switching his laundry around, he moved on to doing general pick up.

By lunch time, he was folding the last of his laundry as sheets and towels thunked around in the washer, the house was in almost as good a shape as the day before Christmas, right before relatives arrived.

He was putting away dishes when he heard the front door open and his mom gasp.

"Alex," her voice queried loudly.

"In here Mom," he called out.

He heard her go upstairs, heard the toilet flush and then come back down slowly making her way to the kitchen.

When she came through the doorway, he could see her eyes glistening.

"Honey you didn't have to do all this, it's not your fault." His mom said coming towards him and wrapping her arms around him.

Xander was glad that his mom assumed his change of behavior was due to the impending divorce. An easy fiction came to his mind, "I just wanted the house to look nice for whoever the house guest is, so you could feel good about having them here."

His mom looked him in the eye, he could tell she didn't believe him but she didn't push the issue. "Thank you Alex."

His mother made a quick lunch, while she ate she explained that the next couple of weeks were going to be crazy so she wanted to take him shopping for some clothes and things.

The afternoon was spent shopping, his mom didn't even flinch when he asked if he could get some boots from the surplus store and when he said he liked the field jackets she wordlessly took the black one he'd been holding and put it with the stack of things he bought. She next pulled in to the Sportmart lot and Xander assumed it was for new trainers – _tennis shoes_ he mentally corrected himself _Hanging out with too many Brits,_ after they got him a new pair of Reeboks and a new backpack book bag, a nicer one than he remembered getting in his older memories, she lead him over to the cycling section

"I know it's a few weeks early, but you've been hinting that you wanted a mountain bike for your birthday." His mom said looking at him, "I'm not trying to bribe you, but I don't want to have at least this part of your birthday get screwed up in the shuffle." His mom looked at him

It was as they were leaving that Xander noticed Mom was using his father's credit card to pay and come to think of it, had all day. She did insist that he get a helmet and gloves, Xander guessed she had seen too many head injuries at work.

After picking up groceries, they headed back to the house. Rory was sitting on the front porch drinking a soda and smoking.

"Evening Jessica,"

"What are you doing here Rory?" his mom asked.

"Tony's at my place, I went and saw him on his lunch break and told him after the shit – after what happened, there needed to be somebody here other than you and Xander when he came to get stuff –sorry kid-" he said to Xander. "When you're ready for him to come over I'll call him."

Xander's mom nodded, "Help us carry this stuff in?"

"Sure."

With Rory's help they quickly got everything into the house and all of Xander's stuff including the bike upstairs in his room.

"Xander, do you want to see if you can go over to Willow or Jesses', it might be easier if you weren't here for this."

Xander winced trying to think which would be more difficult seeing Willow who he had been upset with about Dawn, or Jessie whose last memory was staking him. "Yeah that's probably a good idea." Xander remembered that Willow's parents were out of town for the next couple of days. This was the first summer that they started leaving her alone like this and Xander remembered watching them be more and more absent.

"Hey Willow, can I come hang out?" Xander asked after the obligatory greetings.

"Sure Xander," his oldest friend replied. "If you want to bring your suit, we can swim until sundown, Do you want to stay for dinner?."

"Sounds good." Xander held the phone away from his face. "Mom, Willow wants to know if I want to come over and stay for dinner. Can I go?"

"Thank you," was the reply. "Your uncle or I will pick you up around eight."

"Mom said it's okay, I'll see you in like ten minutes Willow, thanks."

Xander ran upstairs and threw his swim trunks in his new back pack.

A few minutes later, he was skating the three blocks to Willow's.

Once he'd mentioned the divorce, Willow seemed to believe that any oddities in his reactions were due to what was going on at his house. He found that he was able to ignore the actions of future Willow and mostly interact with her as just a teenager. This probably meant he came off as distracted and broody, which would make Willow worry about him, but well fourteen year old Xander was king of broody.

Uncle Rory dropped him off that evening, opening the door, he could smell cookies baking. Mom didn't bake very often so she must be trying to comfort him. He hung his bag next to the stairs and walked into the kitchen. Mom was just plating up some cookies and sat at the table with him.

They sat in silence for a while, finally his mom looked him in the eye, "Big day."

"Yeah."

"This could have gone better."

"I guess."

"Alex, this is going to change everything, but your dad and I will be there for you. So will your uncle Rory."

"Thanks Mom," Xander said taking a cookie.

"Alex," his mom said gathering herself, "there's something else. The reason I came home early yesterday is I got a call from my cousin Charlie."

Xander didn't remember a cousin Charlie.

"I haven't spoken to her for years, but she is in some trouble and needs help. Her daughter needs a place to stay because Charlie can't take care of her." His mom took a sip of coffee. "I came home to talk to your dad and planned to talk to you, because this isn't for a couple weeks, more than likely it will be for a couple years or permanently."

Now Xander was really curious. _What else had D'Hofryn changed_

"I talked to an attorney and a social worker I know at the hospital and everything is set up, so Sunday we will be picking up your cousin Faith at the airport."

Xander sat stunned, _now I know the world is just fucking with me._

 _"_ Xander, Honey, I know none of this is easy. But she needs our help, her Mom is in some trouble with the law and if I don't take her in, she will go into foster care which her mom doesn't want because she thinks it will make it harder to get back into Faith's life."

Xander put on a small smile, "It's okay mom, we need to help out where we can for family."

"Thank you Alex, I know it's just so much to deal with."

"Mom, can we go to mass tomorrow night?" In this time, Xander remembered, that they hadn't attended church very often, mostly because although Catholic, Tony had been lapsed and anti established religion..

His mom cupped his cheek, "Yes Alex, that would be nice."

Four A.M. found Xander sitting up in bed staring out his window, dead friends had haunted his sleep – images of Willow with black eyes – of Dawn weak and drawn after the seed of magic was destroyed. Giving up on sleep, Xander quietly made his way down to the basement and grabbed a jump rope to try to lose himself in exercise. When he started doing push ups and pull ups, he was surprised at how many he could do. He definitely came back stronger than he'd been at this age. As the sun rose, Xander stepped out the back door his Walkman in hand and walked out to the garage. Once he'd made sure that the garage didn't hide any nasties – habits ingrained from too many years of living on edge – Xander put on his headphones and hit play, The opening sounds of the crowd chanting and clapping, the bag pipes quieting the crowd, " _Oh Please talk to Me! Won't you Please come talk to me, Just like it used to be, Come on Come talk to me, Come talk to meee!,"_ The drums thudding into his soul Xander sat in the sun and cried as Peter Gabriel sang about the love and chance at a happy life crumbling around him. Xander sat and listened to the tape, wishing for his ipod, wishing he could thumb past the upbeat Steam, He wasn't ready for that yet, he rewound the tape restarting the song. He sat for several minutes

"Goodbye Morning Star, I hope I'll see you again."

Ever since Jesse had let him copy it on to a tape Xander had loved this album and this song in particular. Shaking himself he got up, some of the older broken tools had handles that could easily become stakes. Sitting in the rising sun, Xander worked on his first two stakes. Putting his finished stakes up on a shelf, Xander took the old push mower and started mowing the back lawn.

He was just flipping over the ninety minute tape when his mom came out the back door. He dropped the headphones into his collar stopping the tape.

"Alex, Honey, you didn't need to do this, this early." She said looking concerned.

Xander shrugged, "Couldn't sleep."

His mom cupped his cheek, "I'm sorry Dear."

"I's okay, just wanted to keep busy."

"I understand, I'll go get breakfast started, come in when you are done with the yard." His mom turned back to the house. "It looks good Alex, thank you."

Author's note: yes I know the idea of getting Faith assigned to Jessica's custody that quickly or even at all with the divorce is just unbelievable, but well, magic.


	2. Chapter 2

usual disclaimer, if you recognize it, I don't own it.

Chapter 2

" _Passing all the cars on the way  
Movement of the wind, back wheels spin  
Pop in a cassette and push play_

 _I'm going back to Cali, Cali, Cali  
I'm going back to Cali - yea y'all, I don't think_" –

*Ding* cut in over LLCoolJ's voice, on the in flight radio.

"We are starting our descent into Los Angeles. Please fasten your seat-belts and return seat-back trays to their upright position, the crew will be making their way through the cabin to collect your headphones and any trash at this time. We'll be landing in about twenty-five minutes, local time 11:45 and the weather is sunny and warm. On Behalf of the crew and I, thank you for flying Continental."

Faith took off her headphones and wrapped the cord around them like they had come. And threaded her ponytail through the back of the Red Sox cap she settled on her head.

As the stewardess came by she smiled and thanked her. Faith had no illusions that the woman had given the kid the headphones in part so she wouldn't bother her, but she was still glad. Thankful that she'd had the last row to herself, she knew they'd placed her there to make it easy for the stewardess that was supposed to keep an eye on her. She zipped up her backpack and looked at LA outside the wings of the plane. As the flaps extended, she leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes thinking about the past few days.

She had been woken when her bedroom door opened. A sense of déjà vu, she remembered seeing D'Hoffryn before she passed out but more immediately was a memory of going to bed before her mom got home with Jimmy, her latest boyfriend. She remembered this night, it's when Jimmy's friend Tom had tried to get her to blow him.

She'd grabbed her bat and started yelling much sooner this time around, remembering that when it happened the first time in her memories she'd been a lot more confused. The fact that the guy had his dick in his hand when he came into the room made it pretty obvious there wasn't any innocent mistake. She'd taken a swing at Tom who jumped back but not in time to prevent her clipping him in the knee.

Like last time, Jimmy had come busting in, her mom yelling behind him. The same as before, Jimmy hadn't believed Tom's protests but instead of throwing him out of the apartment and fighting with him in the street, they'd started to fight in the living room. She had found out later that she had fractured his kneecap when she hit him.

Faith, thinking she might have to book it, used the distraction of them fighting to steal her mom's stash of cash. Getting dressed, she got ready to run if need be, stuffing some clothes in a back pack. She'd held on to her baseball bat in case Tom overcame Jimmy. Then the cops showed up. It turned out that both Jimmy and Tom had warrants out. Her mom had hit one of the cops with a lamp and the next thing she knew, a lady cop was taking her to the station and then a social worker was taking her to a temporary residence facility. Faster than should have been possible, she was being trundled off to a relative that she didn't remember having. It didn't make any sense, until she saw the city she was going to.

Stepping off the plane she was struck again how much air travel changed after September 11th. There just past the gate in the middle of the terminal was a crowd of people. There was a teenager holding up a sign that said Lehane. It was Xander with a woman standing next to him, her hand on his shoulder.

When she got close to them, she pointed to the sign, "I'm Faith."

"You look a lot like your mother did at your age." The woman said.

"I haven't seen too many pictures, but I guess," she held her hand out to the woman.

"Jessica Harris, I know I'm really your cousin but you can call me Aunt Jessica if you want." She said taking Faith's hand in both of hers.

"Probably cause less confusion." Faith replied.

"And this is your Cousin Alex, or Xander as his friends call him." She said indicating her son.

Faith looked Xander in the eye and thought she saw recognition there. She extended her hand.

"You can call me Xander or Alex either is fine." He said taking her hand.

"Not Xray" she said using his radio designation with a little laugh to make it sound like a joke.

"That would just slay me," he replied. "Unless you want to be Foxtrot." Faith stumbled as Xander laughed, a laugh that didn't reach his eyes. His eyes said they would talk later.

Mrs. Harris seemed to shrug off their exchange, "Alex, why don't you take Faith's back pack for her and let's go get her luggage."

Soon they were back in the car driving out of LA.

"Faith, there's a few things you need to know about where we live." Jessica said as she drove up into the Sepulveda Pass. "It's a really nice place to live – during the day." She paused for a minute changing lanes to get around a slow panel van.

"At night, it has a higher crime rate than your average city, so I'm going to ask that you are home before dark every day unless you are out with an adult, either myself or Xander's uncle Rory, or until you make your own friends, one of Xander's friends' parents. I work a rotating shift, right now I'm on nights, while I'm at work, don't answer the door and don't invite anyone into the house." She looked over at Faith sitting in the front seat of the minivan. "I know this sounds paranoid but it's way too easy to get into trouble in Sunnydale after dark."

Faith nodded, "Aunt Jessica, some of the neighborhoods Mom and me have lived in have been pretty sketchy, I've got no problem with those rules."

"Thank you Faith, I'll worry a lot less." Jessica looked up. "Faith, I know you've got the two duffles of clothes, We'll definitely get you some new clothes before school starts, but is there anything you need for the next few weeks? Sunnydale isn't the biggest town and there are better bargains here in LA."

"A couple of things yeah."

The next hour was filled with a repeat of the previous day, although the bike that Faith got came from K-Mart, not Sportmart. Xander was paying attention when they were checking out and he saw that Mom once again used Tony's credit card.

When they got to the Harris household there was a note from Rory that he and Tony had been by the house to pick up a few more things.

That evening, Jessica left for work leaving the two kids to settle in.

Xander put on some Floyd and sat down in the living room.

"So Cousin?" Faith said with a raised eyebrow as she slid bonelessly into the sofa across from him.

"Yeah, not that I can remember before this week."

"What do you remember?" she said looking serious

"Everything up until the explosion, then I'm waking up a couple days ago D'Hofryn's there, he said something about the slayer making a wish then he drops some non-explanation and disappears."

Faith sits up, "Wait a minute, you got the big H? All I got was some asshole waving his junk at me."

"Can we start from the beginning? What happened in that canyon, and what do you mean some guy waving his junk at you?"

"Well, this is my fault," Faith said sighing. "I was big time FUBAR and you were in worse shape. I was half out of it and I said the W word and the tricky bastard bounced us back. The next thing I know I'm waking up to one of Mom's boyfriend's friends trying to convince me of the wonders of joining the glorious church of sucking his cock. That happened the last time around too, but instead of Mom's boyfriend taking him outside to beat on him, they proceeded to bust up the living room, which was all well and good until the cops showed up and Mom must have been more out of it than usual as she took a swing at one of the cops with a lamp and actually hit them." Faith stopped for a minute. "Even with being on the Hellmouth, this works better, as last time the next guy mom had over who tried that didn't get his ass kicked, which is when I hit the road the first time. So yeah, I'd rather be here with you."

Xander looked at her, caring evident in his eyes. "Faith, I'm sorry I knew things were rough but you've seldom talked specifics, that won't happen here."

"It's okay Xander," Faith said. Pointing to her head she said, "Up here that shit's fifteen years ago, I'm over it, and if not, I can find someone who deserves it to take it out on. So tell me your side."

"Well, like I said I woke up to H telling me he would hide me and if you're here, I'm assuming you as well from the PTB as much as possible and that I and I'm assuming he meant we, were free to blow the prior timeline all to hell. So I wake up and other than Mr. coyote ugly giving me the go forth and screw up the world speech, the first thing I hear is my mom telling my uncle that she's bouncing my dad to the curb for cheating on her, which didn't happen before, that was on Thursday and the next thing I find, I've got a cousin that's going to be a stone fox and lives down the hall."

"Going to be, boy-toy?" Faith said raising an eyebrow.

Xander gave her a critical look, "Well, you're a very attractive young woman, but not exactly the mid drift baring, blouse button popping, painted on leather pants goddess that pulled into town four years from now and took advantage of an innocent Xander." Xander said with a smile.

"Innocent?" Faith said with a laugh.

"Okay maybe not innocent, but clueless as hell." Xander said smiling.

"So, how are we going to shake things up?"

"Truck bomb at City Hall?"

"Tempting but harder to pull off with at our current chronological ages, a fifteen year old buying a ton of fertilizer and a couple of barrels of used oil would probably raise questions. Let's hold that thought though for some point before Dick gets too hard to beat." Faith shook her head, "Also, as much as I want to toast him, from when I was working for him, he may be the reason why until Buffy arrived on scene there weren't any world ending threats that got off square one, once she was here, he let her deal with the big bads to keep from noticing him."

"Okay, so we don't sanction him until there's a slayer and official representative of the watchers on sight.

"What do you know about the dark side prior to the Harvest?"

"Should I call you my watcher since it sounds like you're stepping up as research guy?"

Xander ignored her comment, "Since Giles arrived during my sophomore year, I don't know if there are detailed notes about when Darla arrived or when the vessel and the rest of the fangs came to wake the master. If I understand correctly, the Hellmouth was putting lots of evil vibes out, but wasn't the active beacon of doom like it was starting next year, but as you pointed out that could have been the Mayor either siphoning dark energy or just making sure that nobody played too heavily in his personal sandbox."

Faith, after thinking for a while said, "So really we should just focus on being better positioned when this hellmouth starts to get really active."

"I hate to sit back and wait, but other than maybe thinning the heard of the bumpy forehead gang with a particular desire to dust Darla in the next twelve months, I don't know if there is anything we can do."

"I know I'm stronger than I was originally and you said that the primal is there, but I don't have the full slayer strength or senses, I'm used to, and we're still kids, do you really think we can do much without ending up as snack food?"

"I'm not saying tonight, but let's start training and preparing and if the opportunity comes up, let's do it," Xander said steepling his fingers together. "So I've been thinking, we should try to be the kind of kids that get the benefit of the doubt,"

"Well, I've done the rebel coloring outside the lines thing, it might be nice to be the good kid for a change."

Faith sat for a minute. "Crap, I'm not even in high school yet. Do you think I can use knowledge of old English and Latin to get out going to middle school?"

Xander laughed, "No, but why don't you talk to mom about skipping eighth grade. You've definitely got the knowledge. Sell it as not being challenged and wanting to be with me and my friends and making it so she only has to arrange one set of transportation."

"You think she will buy it?"

"Yeah, and if my experience with young slayers and social workers bears out, anything that improves your chances of staying in school and out of trouble will be supported."

"Social workers, been there done that, annoying."

"Well the good news is Sunnydale syndrome should make the social worker thing easier, I mean even when Buffy was on all kind of people's shit list and didn't have a job, she got custody of her sister without too many hassles about the accusations and suspicions that were in her juvenile record."

"Okay, how do we make school better?"

"Good grades."

"Check."

"Sports, a Letterman's jacket is like a blame repelling talisman for teachers."

"I've heard stories about you in a speedo, I'm down with that."

Xander blushed, "I'm thinking that will happen, but I may have to kill the coach and the nurse before they can make fish men," he said joking darkly.

"Not ruling that out." At Xander's raised eyebrow, "Hey you and I know that demons don't have a corner on the evil market."

"I won't dispute you there. Actually I was thinking cross country."

Faith gave him a questioning look.

"Would you prefer cheer-leading?"

"That would lead to multiple homicides."

"Well I don't plan on going out for football, I like my brain cells and my ribs in their uncrunched state and, yeah, hiding the bodies would be more trouble than it's worth. I mean you could do volleyball, but for me it's the only option as a fall sport. Plus although it's a team sport it's mostly an individual performance and I remember them stumping in PE for people to join the team every year, so we've got a better chance of getting on the team."

Faith nodded.

"That makes sense. So school, we try to stay under the radar by swimming in the upper edges of the heard, any other thoughts?"

"Are we thirteen and fourteen or are we in our twenties?"

"We may have the experience and perspective of adults, but I think in most things, we need to be teenagers, otherwise we'll go crazy." Faith paused for a moment, "You know teenagers who with minimal support, save the world on a regular basis."

"That sounds familiar," Xander said as he got up and went upstairs.

Coming back down the stairs, he handed her a t shirt folded around something. "It's not much, but here's a welcome to your new home gift."

Faith looked at him and then opened the package. A metal rosary, small squirt bottle with a permanent marker cross on the outside, and a stake.

"Thanks Xander" she said, "I have my cross that my grandmother gave me and a baseball bat that was in my checked bag, but I didn't have a chance to gather anything and then when I found out I was flying cross country, I thought weapons were a bad idea."

"Yeah, even though 9/11 hasn't happened yet, a ten inch stake might raise questions."

"So yeah, we prepare to fight," Faith said feeling the weight of the stake.

"I'd also like to convince Willow and Jessie to go out for sports with us, and we might teach them both a thing or two about fighting.

"You think you can get Red to do the sports thing?" Faith asked skeptically.

"Two words 'college applications', also counts as PE requirement giving her more time for other subjects and lets her avoid the dreaded dodgeball."

"Yeah, that will probably do it. I never met Jessie, you think he'll go for the same logic?"

"Jessie's easier, if he thinks it will get him anywhere with Cordelia, or any other girl for that matter, he'll be in."

"So one word, 'pussy'," Faith said giving Xander a sly smile.

"Not going to deny that," Xander said. "He's my best friend but dude has a serious case of horny."

"Shifting gears," Faith held up the stake. "What about other weapons?"

"Well, particularly with mom's announcement of the divorce, buying a bunch of swords and axes would freak her out, assuming we had the budget for it, but let me show you something," Xander lead her down to the basement. He pulled a moving blanket off an old gun safe and quickly spun the dial working the combination. He stepped back to reveal several pistols and long guns.

"Some of these are technically my dad's so he might take them in the divorce but I can see mom claiming them for spite. More than half of them though belonged to my grand dad."

"If you had these, how come you never- "

"Let me count the ways: We were underage so we have to be extra careful about them, the cops for all their incompetence would respond to gunshots - think the sporting good store incident - Buffy, and through her, Willow had a pathological hatred of guns, and yeah, they don't kill vampires, although vampires have a harder time chasing you with no kneecaps. So we have these in instances where guns may be useful." Xander closed the safe and placed the blanket back over it. "My Uncle Rory hunts, maybe we can talk him in to teaching us, he and my dad used to go together, with my dad out of the picture, or hell my dad might take it as an opportunity to bond with me. You know promotes responsibility, blah, blah, would give us a legitimate reason to be into guns and bows."

When they got back upstairs, Faith looked at him, "Well I have something to contribute to the war chest. When I thought I might have to run, I grabbed my mom and her boyfriend's money and a couple things worth selling. It's not a fortune, but it's a couple thousand dollars."

"There's a lot we can do with a couple grand," Xander said. "Have you thought of anything to use it for?"

"What do you think your mom's opinions are of tattoos?" Faith asked thinking about

"She'd freak, but she has one that I'm pretty sure she got before she turned 18 so if it is the one way we 'act out,' for the time being, we could probably get away with it. Are you thinking spidey sense?"

"Yeah, and maybe something like the council wet works teams had for anti-scrying."

"Okay, I can think of a couple of books from the magic shop that we're going to want then for reference," Xander said.

The two teenagers ended up passed out on the sofa watching TV and woke to the beeping of Faith's watch alarm. Faith shook herself awake, she wasn't going to mention it but talking late into the night and then falling asleep watching TV lead to the best sleep she'd had in a week. She was surprised that they didn't wake up together laying together, but instead each of them was burrowed into a corner of the sofa their feet touching in the center.

"Wake up Lazybones," Faith said standing up and stretching.

"Why did you set the alarm for"- Xander paused to look at his watch – "six a.m.?" Xander replied.

"Training," the dark haired girl replied with a smile. "What time does Aunt Jessica get home?"

"Around eight."

"Okay Mr. I-want-to-be-a-team-player, let's go for a run," Faith said as she went up stairs.

"Hunh?" Xander asked intelligently, following her.

"Well, if you want to make the cross country team, we should start training." Faith said as she closed the door to her room. Knowing he could hear her through the closed door, she kept talking, "Besides, it's something we can start on now, later today, we can go by the library and look up the results from last year's JV team so we can see what our goals are. Tonight when your mom goes to work, you and I can start sparring. We need to get our instincts used to our bodies again."

Faith knocked on Xander's door.

"Open." He said, she watched him finish lacing his shoes.

Out on the front steps, they stretched and got ready to run. "So where to Xander?"

"Well I figure it's about two miles to school, so let's try for that, we can walk back if need be." Xander said, starting the stop watch taking off at what felt to his older mind like a slow warm up pace. As he and Faith made their way through the neighborhood, he pointed things out that she wouldn't have known in her previous residence in Sunnydale. They were able to work up to a moderate pace and Xander hit the timer on his watch when they arrived at the school. They both collapsed on a bench.

Catching her breath, Faith looked at him, "How bad is it?"

"fifteen minutes and change, how are you feeling?"

Faith blew out a deep breath, "like I should be able to jog all the way home, which is better than I expected. So still set on doing the Letterman thing?"

Xander smiled, "Yeah, the Hyena likes to run, I'm feeling pretty good."

The two teens took a minute to get a drink from a water fountain and then head back. When they got halfway home, Faith decided to up the pace a little bit. "Come on slow poke," she said as she pushed past Xander. They egged each other on until the last two blocks were at an all out sprint. Xander pushed past her two houses away from his and stopped in the shade of the driveway a huge grin on his face. Faith stood hands on knees looking up at him, "Damn X-man, you've got some speed."

"Thanks Faith," Xander said between heavy breaths, after a minute, he led her to the back yard, "There's a weight bench and weights in the garage, but it's buried, sometime this week we can dig it out."

"Okay do you want to do Tai Chi or the Marsoc shortcard?" Faith asked with a grin.

"let's do the Marsoc, until you can teach me Tai Chi, if Mom gets home early, I don't want to give her any reason to suspect things are out of the ordinary."

Faith came down from showering just as Aunt Jessica walked in the front door. "Good morning."

"Good morning, I didn't expect you to be awake this early," the older woman said.

"East coast time, plus I haven't been able to run the last week, so I dragged Xander out with me this morning." Faith answered, this caused Jessica to raise an eyebrow. they heard Xander in the kitchen. Jessica put down her purse and walked into the kitchen.

After thanking Xander for making breakfast, the sat down, "Faith, when I get up this afternoon, we have a meeting with your assigned social worker, who happens to be my friend Vivian, then tomorrow we need to get you registered for school."

"Aunt Jessica, Xander and I were talking last night, do you think I could skip eighth grade?" She gave her most earnest look, "I'm sure I can pass end of year tests or any freshman placement tests for ninth grade. Then we'd be in the same school, which would make it easier for you for parent teacher conferences, transportation, and stuff."

"Let's talk to Vivian, this afternoon, if she thinks it can be done, we'll talk to the school, it would make it a little easier for me." She took a sip of her tea, "So knowing that you need to be back here by three, what do you two have planned for today?"

"Well, I figured we could take our bikes and I could show Faith around town, stop by and introduce her to Willow and Jessie."

"Okay, have fun, but be back here before three," Xander's mom said. "Thank you for breakfast, I'm going to bed."

A.N.: Yeah I know just going out and running like that is not the optimal way to get into shape for team racing, but neither of them has been involved in training non-enhanced humans other than potentials who I assume are all above average physically. I don't know who started it in Fic, but the idea that post Primal and post swim team, Xander is an enhanced human makes sense to me. It is IMO easily supported by canon with the amount of physical damage he takes and keeps going.


	3. Chapter 3

For personal enjoyment not for profit, if you recognize it, I don't own it, just bending and folding it.

Chapter 3

Xander dialed his oldest friend's number.

"Good morning, Rosenberg residence." He heard her bright voice.

"Hey Willow, it's Xander," He greeted her.

"Xander how are you doing? Are you okay? I was surprised I didn't hear from you this weekend. What did you do this weekend?" His friend rapid fired.

"It's been a very busy weekend. I'm doing okay. I kind of got a baby sister over the weekend." Xander said giving Faith a wink.

"You mean your dad has a kid with his mistress, I thought you said he was sleeping with Mrs. Thompson?"

"Willow, joke, one of Mom's cousins has a daughter that needed a place to stay, we picked her up at LAX yesterday, Mom's taking guardianship of her, she's going to stay with us probably for at least a year if not longer," Xander said. Before Willow could go off, he continued, "So I was going to show her around town this morning, the library, where school is, but wondered if you wanted to meet at the mall for lunch so you could meet her."

"Yeah, that could be good, we could go eat and then go ah shopping, yeah that's what people do at the mall." Xander could almost hear Willow's mind going in a million different directions.

Jesse agreed even quicker, always up to hang at the mall.

Since Faith already knew her way around Sunnydale, or at least had memories of Sunnydale from being a teenager, Xander and she road straight to the library.

"Well, we've got that going for us," Xander said seeing that their run this morning was almost on pace to be on the team, more good news was for the last two years, Sunnydale had only fielded a JV and Varsity team, no Frosh team.

"So we can probably walk onto the team today," Faith said, reading over his shoulder.

"Point,"

Their next stop was the Magic Box where they found the book that Xander remembered on runic tattoos. It was in Old English and French but Xander was confident they could translate it. Two more quick stops had a post office box set up for Faith and after the purchase of a money order they sent off an order for a kit with basic tattoo gun, ink, and some needles from the back of Inked magazine.

After hiding the book at the house, they made it to the mall with a little time to spare.

They saw Willow fidgeting on a bench in front of the food court, wearing overalls and t-shirt, she saw Xander and stood as they walked up. "Hey there, Xander, is that a new shirt?" she asked brightly.

"Yeah, mom took me shopping on Friday. Willow, this is my cousin Faith," Xander introduced them. "Faith, my oldest friend Willow."

Faith held her hand out, "Xander's told me a lot about you, it's nice to meet you."

Willow flustered, "Thanks."

They didn't see Jesse so they made their way into the food court. "Willow, so what's good here?" Faith asked.

"Well, I like the salad bar stand, but I usually get Khan's BBQ when I'm here with Xander," Willow answered.

"Xander, are you going to to the Mongolian BBQ?"

"That was my plan," he answered.

"Well, why don't you go do that and Willow and I will grab salads. Xander can fend for himself."

"Oh, Okay."

"You good X-man?" Faith asked him.

"Yeah, sounds good, grab a table over in the corner." Xander said heading over to his favorite restaurant, he had just started piling meat and veggies in the bowl for the artist at the grill to turn into spicy noodly goodness, when Jesse walked up to him.

"Hey Xander, who's the hottie talking to Willow?"

"That is my cousin Faith," Xander said as he created the geometric masterpiece that allowed him to get maximum meat and veggies.

Jesse picked up a bowl to start loading his own lunch.

"How long is she in town and more importantly, does she have a boyfriend?"

"She's staying with us and I haven't asked." Xander said shaking his head. "What happened to your undying devotion to Cordelia?"

"Oh it still exists, but I've realized that the universe may have other plans for me." Jesse

Xander hoped that wasn't fate screwing with him. "Unh huh, I see." Xander paid the cashier and walked over to where he saw Willow and Faith sitting across from each other. Jesse slid ahead of him and sat down next to Faith

"Jesse McNally, Welcome to Sunnydale, if you need someone to show you all the wonders of our fair city, I would be happy to offer my expert services."

"Thank you, Xander is already teaching me all the ins and outs of Sunnydale, but I can always use more friends," Faith said giving Jesse a winning smile.

"So how long are you in town for?" Jesse asked

"I don't know how much Xander told you, but my Mom is going to be away for the foreseeable future, so Aunt Jessica has actually taken me in. I'll be here at least through the school year."

"Cool, so we'll see you at Sunnydale High then?" Jesse asked.

"That's the plan, but only if we can convince the school to let me skip eighth grade, I got really good grades, and should be able to do it, but it's not set up yet," Faith answered. Not letting Jesse ask another question, Faith turned back to Willow, "So like I was saying I've heard that colleges really look at the whole picture. I mean, once you hit the really competitive schools, pretty much everyone has an unweighted 4.0 so it's a question of how many units of AP credit you can get and other things you can point to, like clubs, sports, and community involvement. I'm kind of on my own for college, So I have to get really good scholarships or I'll probably be doing community college before transferring to a 4 year school. If I can graduate with a semester or two of credits already in the bag, that's so much better. Most of the sports are things I don't want to play, but Xander and I were talking about cross country, I love to run, and the season is over before finals first semester so we can focus on reports and tests when it really counts."

Willow had been nodding along with what she'd been saying right up until Faith said, "So do you want to start practicing with Xander and I in the morning?"

Willow's nods lost rhythm, "What?"

"Well, you're Xander's best friend, I already think you and I are going to be friends and it would be great to have another face I know on the team."

"I – I – I don't do well with P.E.," Willow said, looking down at her salad.

"That's the other beauty of it," Xander supplied. "if you play a sport, that counts towards your P.E. requirement to graduate."

"Freeing up class period for computers or language," Faith said with a smile.

"Okay I was going to say for auto shop or wood shop, but yeah," Xander interjected. "And hey, no dodgeball or the confidence building technique of the week."

Willow's eyes lit up, "Okay, Okay, I don't know if you guys planned to double team me, but okay I'll give it a try."

"I'd be up for double teaming," Jesse said waggling his eyebrows. Willow blushed while Faith just held up a finger and waggled it back and forth.

"Jesse, I don't plan on double teaming you, but do you want to join us working out?" Xander asked.

Jesse very maturely stuck his tongue out. "Yeah, I'm in, chicks dig athletes."

"Chicks also dig guys who don't obviously only think of them as chicks." Faith said giving Jesse a Clint Eastwood squint. She then put a hand on Jesse's shoulder, "Don't worry Jesse, between Willow and I we'll make you acceptable to walk out in polite company."

Faith looked at Jesse and Willow, "Not to mention if I join a team that starts practicing before school starts, that will give me some more people that know me if not more friends which will make the whole new school thing less awkward."

The conversation moved on to other things and Xander was glad that at least it appeared that Willow and Jesse got on with Faith. He'd still been trying to figure out what was going on when he'd gone over to Willow's house the day he spun back so was kind of out of it. Watching his friends interact He felt like things weren't too crazy. He really saw Willow as his old friend at this point before she'd turned down the path that lead to the destruction of the seed. After lunch they wandered, the mall was the mall, Monday at the beginning of summer wasn't the busiest time, the technology available at Circuit City just made him long for Flat screen TVs, Netflix, his Blackberry and his Ipod. Faith looked kind of interestedly at the display of pagers.

Faith ended up buying a book, Get fit the Army Way, at the bookstore. She responded to Willow's look of concern, "Hey if they get hundreds of thousands of people into shape, they've got to be doing something right."

"I guess," Willow responded sheepishly.

"Lighten up Willow, I just think most of these fitness books are basically somebody pushing people to join their gym or buy their product, _to reach the next level_ ," she said pointing to the Gold's Gym and GNC labeled books, "I just want something that's going to tell me what to do to get in shape without hurting myself."

Faith dragged Willow off to look at clothes, leaving the two boys on their own. They meandered into the game store.

"So, no boyfriend, wants to make friends, nice." Jesse said with a grin and waggled eyebrows.

"My cousin, don't be an ass." Xander responded back.

"Yeah so how close do you think you and your cousin will be?" Jesse asked trying to turn the tables on Xander.

"Well, I think we're actually third or maybe fourth cousins or so, so not really close enough that it would matter if we'd like met in college, but with introducing her as my cousin, I don't really want my ringtone to be dueling banjos."

"Your what?" Jesse said looking confused.

"Ringtone, entrance music, theme song," Xander said trying to cover his gaff.

"Oh, yeah, that could be awkward if you like took her to homecoming."

"You think?"

"Anyway, so far she's great people, it will be interesting once school starts, see if she ends up in a different social group. But I like the idea of starting the year as part of a team, might keep Larry and the other group of morons off my case for a change."

"Yeah, that would be nice," Jesse said as he thumbed through the latest issue of Dragon. "So do you think Cordie will think I look good with a Letterman's jacket?"

"Jesse, I predict Queen C will be dating a varsity football player before the first dance," Okay he was cheating he remembered this and how much Jesse moped over it. "Jesse, look man, I can really only think of one chance you have of dating Cordelia at this point, you'd have to stop hanging around with Willow and me and then you'd have to overcome the facts that she's dogged you as part of the nerd herd for the last two years, going to be a cheerleader, and be dating a guy with a car by the third week of classes. Are you willing to go that far for that small a chance?"

Jesse set down the magazine he was looking at, "Shit Xander when did you get all Zen Master."

"Well, watching mom and dad blow apart, and then talking to Faith the last two days, she's way focused on getting through school and getting to college. It's made me think. Just make some new friends and if there happens to be a girl you like, well, then maybe you will have someone to date."

"Speaking of dating, are you ever going to acknowledge Willow's crush on you?"

"What?" Xander asked feigning ignorance.

"You cannot tell me you don't know she's got a mad crush on you. Really?"

"Okay, yeah I know, honestly I haven't done anything because I didn't want to screw things up or make you feel like the odd man out," Xander told his friend. "It's kind of felt like us against the world for the last couple of years and I didn't want to lose that."

"Xander, you are a good enough guy that even if it doesn't work out, you should still be friends, and besides," he said with a chuckle, "now that D'artagnan is here to distract Porthos, the other two musketeers can go frolic."

Xander looked at him funny, "By that logic since they're off on their own, wouldn't that mean that you and I-"

"Shut it Athos,"

"I mean, I know there was that time in sixth grade-"

"Shut it!" Jesse said with a growl and they broke up laughing.

"Jesse, Xander."

The boys turned to see Johnathan and Andrew were setting up a game at one of the tables in back of the store.

The two friends walked over. Xander recognized the original Shadowrun manual and several maps and character sheets. Xander remembered seeing Andrew running games for some of the geekier slayers in the Cleveland house, Winter was long and they could only do so much training. He had never had time to join in before, but from things he heard, at least years from now, Andrew knew how to run a game. Xander started thinking about Johnathan and Andrew and felt the sound of thunder. _Maybe – maybe if Johnathan and Andrew didn't feel so isolated, maybe they wouldn't turn evil._

"Xander?" Jesse saying his name brought him out of his thoughts.

"Sorry, what?"

"Andrew was asking if we wanted to join a new campaign." Jesse answered. "They are looking to start a Shadowrun game."

"Could be fun, would Willow and my cousin be invited?"

"Your cousin?" Andrew asked.

"Yeah, my cousin Faith, from Boston, just moved in with us. I'm not sure if she would want to play, but she's new in town and doesn't know many people."

"Hey, the more people the better." Johnathan.

"I don't know," Andrew said trying to sound authoritative. "I'd want to meet her first and vet her, find out her gaming experience-"

"Andrew stop trying to be a martinet, if Xander and Jesse vouch for her that's good enough for me." Jonathan told his friend. "besides even if she looks like Xander in a dress she and Willow are still better looking than any girl you've said more than 5 words to in the last forever."

"Jeez – Johnathan – yeah okay, we're going to play the first couple Sunday's here to try to get some other people to play and then move to somebody's house so we don't have to pay a table fee."

"Sounds good, we'll call you later this week," Jesse said grabbing Xander's arm and lead him out of the game store.

"Are you okay Xander?" his friend asked worriedly.

Xander took a deep breath, "Yeah, just this thing with my parents and then having Faith show up, it hits me at moments and my brain just takes a walk."

"No problem man, if you need to talk," his oldest male friend offered.

"Thank, I'll be okay," Xander replied. He looked at his watch, "Let's go meet the girls."

After saying goodbye, Faith and Xander headed home. To Xander's increased senses, Vivian smelled and appeared completely human.

The meeting with the social worker went pretty much how they hoped. Xander thought to himself that D'Hoffryn had to be involved given that Faith was set to take placement exams on Thursday to advance to ninth grade. Faith had gone off with Vivian to the back yard to talk and when she returned, Vivian explained to Jessica that she would recommend Faith taking self defense courses as part of her counseling to build confidence and overcome the assault that happened. Xander almost wasn't surprised when Vivian turned to Xander and asked if he would like to join her. She told Xander's mom that she couldn't pay for Xander's classes, but she could get him the discounted rate that her department got. When his mom nodded to him, Xander quickly agreed. When they finished, Vivian set her notebook and name tag on the table by the door.

"Okay, so now that the official visit is over, Faith if you want you can call me Aunt Viv, I remember your mom, Jessica, and me used to play on the tire swing out back here. Since your Aunt Jessica works nights, I'll probably check in on you more than strictly necessary, don't worry it's not me thinking something is wrong."

Over dinner, Jessica and Vivian shared stories of Faith's mother growing up, not touching on the problems she'd had the last few years. After they left Xander and Faith were sitting in the living room,

"So, ever feel like somebody out there is nudging pieces pretty hard?" Xander asked.

"Yeah, but for the first time in quite a while I think we at least have some clue as to the way we're being steered." Faith responded. "So, when we were talking out back, Vivian told me that learning self defense helped her feel better about herself after she was attacked. She has a friend who runs a Hapkido dojo, so this isn't like some YMCA class she wants to sign me up for."

"So do you still want to spar to see how our reflexes are?" Xander asked.

"Sure thing Xman," Faith said getting up and kicking off her shoes, "just no face shots until we know our controls good, I don't know if I have Slayer healing and I don't want to have to explain a black eye to Aunt Jessica."

Friday morning after their work out, the kids rode to the local copy shop and ran off copies of a flyer advertising yard work and general housework. In his first time around, he had earned pocket money mowing lawns and cleaning gutters so didn't see any reason not to do the same this time as well.

That afternoon he and Faith walked around the neighborhood and handed out the flyers getting a couple of jobs right off the bat.

It also gave Xander an opportunity to introduce Faith to some of their nicer neighbors.


	4. Chapter 4

For personal enjoyment not for profit, if you recognize it, I don't own it, just bending and folding it.

Chapter 4

Faith took off her gloves and wiped the sweat off her forehead. June was an unpleasant time to be doing warehouse work. The last two weeks had been nice, some of the most relaxing times she had really had ever. Taking her Sox cap off and shaking out her now shorter hair, she thought that it was nice that aunt Jessica cared about her and Xander, but let them make a lot of their own decisions. Sure she planned things, like arranging for Xander's uncle Rory to hire her and Xander to do odd jobs at his garage. It was real work, though, like doing the inventory which had her sweating, they'd already found several discrepancies which proved they were doing something more useful than just cleaning. When Uncle Rory had taken them fishing the prior Saturday he had told them that Jessica asked him if he could use them. But that was okay with Faith, he was paying them under the table until she turned 14 and he could get them both work permits but it was still spending money which she had never had a lot of. The Faith that had had to oversee a bunch of teenage girls figured that Aunt Jessica didn't want her and Xander left with too much free time. So she approved of their idea of going out for Cross Country and the training that that entailed. They were going to Hapkido classes two days a week, which was interesting, it was a style Faith hadn't studied before and lent itself quite nicely to being smaller and not nearly as strong as she was used to. Mr Park was a great teacher. Faith's meetings with a counselor so far had been pretty low key, but she had to watch what she said lest she come off as the world weary twenty six year old she was in her head.

They were going over to Willow's when they left the shop and Faith was totally looking forward to diving in the pool.

"Almost done?" she turned to see Rory looking in the storage shed.

"If the other shed is the same, I think we've got at least four or five more days like this," Xander replied to which Faith groaned. It wasn't that bad, they were only working eight until noon Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, but damn it was hot and dirty work after about nine a.m.

Rory chuckled, "Yeah Faith, that's why I'm paying you two to do the job. When you're my age, it's harder to bend and climb to check things that have gotten pushed to the back of a shelf." He held up two cold bottles of water, "It's a hell of a job, I'm just glad you two are able to do it so I don't have to do it myself or take Brian away from working on cars to do it." Brian was Rory's only full-time employee a quiet guy in his twenties.

Faith gratefully took the ice cold bottle from him. She took a couple of swallows letting the liquid chill her throat. She didn't feel so hot that chugging the water would make her feel bad but she still took measured swallows and noticed that Xander did the same. She looked around once again at the back yard of Rory's shop there were two storage sheds, a dozen cars in various states of repair, Rory's projects, most of which Xander told her were cars that he took in to repair and then never heard from the owners again, and the shaded Kennel that was the dogs', Fred and Lamont, daytime resting place.

"Alright you two, here's your pay and I'll see you this weekend." Rory handed each of them an envelope.

"Thanks Rory," Faith said pocketing the money. Rory had told them he would take them shooting on Saturday, as Xander had predicted he was open to the idea of taking them hunting.

After finishing their water, they each rinsed the bottles and refilled them to put back in the fridge as was the norm at the shop and road back to the Harris household.

Aunt Jessica had lunch prepared for them when they got there, so after quick showers, they sat and chatted with her, this being Thursday, Jessica was awake after the nap she took when she got home to put her back on 'normal people' hours as she called it. They told her about doing inventory and cleaning. She sympathised with the two teenagers. Once they were done with lunch,after hugs goodbye they both dressed in swimsuits and skated over to Willow's.

Willow's mother answered the door and with a quick greeting just pointed out to the backyard before going back to the stack of papers she had spread on the kitchen table. Out in the back yard, Jessie was talking to Willow and Marcie, it was obvious from his hand gestures that he was talking about the game the last Sunday. Faith hadn't met Marcie in the prior time, but they had run into her on Sunday when they were grabbing lunch before meeting Andrew and Jonathan at the game store. Xander had asked if she minded them joining her and then talked to her through lunch, talking her into joining their gaming group. After the gaming broke up when they were on their way back home, Xander had explained to her about the Sue Richards gone around the bend trick that the girl had apparently pulled their sophomore year. Increasing the estrogen factor in the game group had been a good thing in Faith's opinion.

Dropping their boards and bags, they toed off their shoes before joining the others.

" – Andrew totally should have let me make that maneuver," Jessie was complaining. Jessie had opted to be their Rigger, their vehicle specialist.

"Jessie, are you whining about your crash?" Xander asked. At Marcie's nod, he continued. "Dude, it was a Tuk-Tuk you hotwired with five of us hanging on, not your custom interface GSXR, I'm just glad we landed in the water, skin replacement rehab would have killed the profit on that mission. Just be glad Marcie and I opted for ruggedized cases for our electronics. As is I still think replacing the two personal comms that got damaged should come out of the pay before distribution."

"Hey if Willow had been able to maintain the glamour spells, we wouldn't have been running under fire, we could have just gotten on the Tube and been back out of Krupps territory before they knew Marcie or you had spoofed the data cache."

"Just be glad Marcie was doing it," Xander interrupted him. "I'm definitely second string on the decking until I gain some points to level up or buy better gear."

"It's not my fault, that guard must have rolled a critical success to perceive us." Willow said defensively.

"I'm just surprised Andrew does that good a job of GMing." Faith observed.

"Yeah he is pretty good, I can't wait to see what he has for us once we've developed some skills," Marcie said with a smile.

"Anyway, I don't know about you guys, but that pool looks inviting," Xander said.

"Then by all means don't let us keep you waiting," Jessie said trying to use a hip throw to launch his friend. Xander 's hand snaked out and grabbed Jessie as he lost his balance and both boys went in the water in a sputtering laughing heap.

Faith watched Xander swim over to the ladder and climbed out of the pool. He walked over to the chairs where he and Faith had dropped their stuff. He gave Jessie a dirty look as he pealed his now soaked shirt off and dug his keys and now sodden wallet out of his pockets. Turning away, she skimmed off her shirt and shimmied out of her shorts. With a yell of happiness, she took three bounding steps and bounced into a hand spring on the side of the pool and dove into the cool clear water. She surfaced behind Jessie and poked him in the ribs causing him to jump and sputter. From there the afternoon devolved into the usual horsing around that all teenagers engage in. After a seemingly endless game of Marco Polo, the third one of the afternoon, they were all lounging in the shallow end catching their breath.

Willow's mom came out leading Aunt Jessica, "Xander, Faith, did you two forget you have class today?

"Sorry, Mom," Xander yelled. "Willow, thanks for having us over."

"Sorry, Aunt Jessica," Faith said. "I set an alarm, but then left my watch in my shorts." She said gesturing to the pile of clothes."

"Well, you still have time to make class, I've got your gear in the car," Aunt Jessica said.

Faith gave Willow a quick hug and thanked her before a quick rinse under the outdoor shower that Xander had just run through. She grabbed her stuff and joined Aunt Jessica and Willow's mom. "Thank you for letting us come over today Mrs. Rosenberg."

The bell over the door chimed as Faith and Willow entered the magic shop.  
"I've never been in here before," Willow said.  
"Xander and I stuck our heads in when he was showing me around the town, but I wanted to look around a little more." Faith said.  
"I didn't know you were into magic," Willow said.  
"Well, I'm not per say, except that back in Boston, there was an old woman that lived down the hall, she gave me a charm that helped with cramps," it had actually been one of the coven members that provided it to the slayers. It did help with cramps, but it also made it so that the vampire sense was less a less painful distraction. "I couldn't find it when I was packing my stuff to come out here. Also, when mom had a particularly bad break up, Mrs. Haresh did some kind of cleansing spell which seemed to make the apartment much brighter and improved Mom's mood." Okay that was made up, but she and Xander had talked and the idea of Willow cutting her teeth on positive earth magic might lead to less likelihood of Darth Willow.  
"So you're thinking the cleansing might make things more positive at the Harris household?"  
"Things are pretty good, but it can't hurt."  
The two young teens browsed around, Faith lead Willow away from the more wanna blessed be new age stuff to a book of household spells written by a technopagan and a thin volume on focusing your inner power. Willow browsing through the household magic book held it up,  
Pointing to a charm for easing the goddess's burden.  
"Yeah, the drawing looks similar,"Faith said.

The two girls put the their heads together.  
"That doesn't look too difficult," Willow said reading the instructions.  
"Do you want to help me?" Faith asked.  
"We can make them together," Willow said happily.

Faith saw another book on runic tattoos and pointed it out, "Tattoos, cool."

"Meh, not for me," Willow commented.

"You don't like tattoos?" Faith asked.

"They're okay, just well, Jewish law says do not mutilate your body," Willow explained.

Faith decided not to bring up the fact that her friend had pierced ears and just shrugged, "Well, I think they're cool and if there are magic ones, that's even cooler."  
The shop keeper was more than happy to help them find the ingredients he had in stock, small crystals and some herbs. After paying for their purchases, they hit a craft store and a health food store for the more mundane items and went back to the Rosenberg's. Reading the instructions, the both realized it was the wrong time of the month to obtain the best effect from making their own charms.  
They found cleansing rituals for an individual and a place both spells/rituals had notes that it was recommended that a magic user, whenever possible, perform these prior to any major spells so that negative forces didn't corrupt the work.  
Putting that aside, they started reading the other book they had found on focusing power. The first chapter was all about meditation.  
"Between these, are you getting the impression that the better prepared we are, the higher the likelihood of success?" Faith asked.  
"Yeah, it seems kind of like a science lab in a way, just with different tools. The cleaner the equipment, the purer the ingredients, the more likely you are to get the desired result. Do you think Xander or Jesse would be interested in this?"  
"I think so, but can we not mention the charms to them?"  
Willow blushed bright red, "No of course, not wanting to discuss that with the boys, near the boys, around the boys."


	5. Chapter 5

For personal enjoyment not for profit, if you recognize it, I don't own it, just bending and folding it.

Chapter 5

Xander bounced down the stairs Sunday morning, the past two weeks had been fun, Mom and Vivian had gotten together and sent he and Faith to Summer camp on Catalina. Snorkeling, kayaking, and sailing were great, but the activity he and Faith had gravitated to almost every day was archery. They had won camp trophies for that but had also placed first in their age groups for kayak races.  
Xander heard Faith telling Mom about the end of camp competition and how she and Xander had capsized their dinghy, the sail regatta being the one event they had failed spectacularly at.  
Xander entered the kitchen and without interrupting them wordlessly got himself a cup of coffee and plated up a couple of breakfast. Near as he and Faith could tell, one of the side effects of the cleansing ritual they had performed was that his Mom had gotten a little more domestic.  
He sat down and took a bite, "Delicious Mom."  
"Thank you Honey," Mom said smiling. She then looked more serious, "Now would you two like to tell me why Vi got a call from the camp director asking her if she knew the two kids she signed up for camp had tattoos?"  
Faith and Xander looked at each other, Faith ducked her head slightly and looked to their guardian. "It was my idea, Aunt Jessica, it's kind of a Boston thing, well an old sailor thing anyway."  
"Explain."  
"When a sailor does something significant; sails around the horn or crosses the equator, or survives something like a shipwreck, they use an earring or a tattoo to commemorate it." Faith took a deep breath, "I figured Xander and I had gone through something major this summer, but we are better for it. We now have a sibling we can count on, I've got you and Uncle Rory, Mr Harris to a lessor extent. It just felt right to link that."  
Xander could see his mom mentally counting to ten. She seemed to do it a second time.  
"Okay I can see that, I'm not pleased, but you kids are going through a lot and you haven't gotten into any other trouble. Rory says good things about your work ethic, and a couple of the neighbors you've been working for have actually spoken to me to make sure you would be back this week so you can help them out." She paused for a moment, "You're not planning on any more tattoos right?"  
"No Ma'am," Faith said.  
"No Mom," Xander answered.  
"Okay, finals do not count as a major achievement. No more tattoos until you're at least 16 and do not get any sports teams or anyone's name."  
"No Ma'am."  
"Okay, let me see these works of art."

Both kids sheepishly turned and lifted their shirts so their left shoulders were bared. the had opted to work the runes into a simple triquesta pattern that was then filled in with a different ink to make the runes less distinct if not viewed closely. they also chose the shoulder even though it weakened the perception runes slightly because they didn't know how to hide a tattoo on the face.

"Okay, so did you pick them for any special meaning or just because they look cool."

"Clarity of thought, clarity of vision, and safety/protection." Faith answered.

Mom just nodded and gestured for them to sit back down, "I'm a bit disappointed, but not enough that I'm going to punish you two the week of your birthday." that was something else that had changed, Faith's birthday which had been in November her first go around, was shifted to the end of July, the day before Xander's. Xander thought it was because D had either anticipated or steered their idea to have her skip a grade which was easier to explain if she was just a little bit older. Xander was relieved to hear this, uncle Rory was taking them on a camping trip to go hunting next weekend. Xander remembered his uncle's Taxidermies including the boars like they would be hunting this weekend, not that Xander wanted a stuffed boar, but the first time he was a teenager he had adored the taste of boar meat, of course the hyena might have had something to do with that. After spending the morning helping clean up the house and doing loads of laundry from their camp duffles, they went over to Willow's house where the game group was meeting.

"So, Alec and Fidelia have returned from the delivery of the prototypes you obtained from ZCorp, you have all received your certified credit sticks and Krugerrands as agreed." Andrew stated the game reason they had used so they could play the two without Xander and Faith as he set up his game screen. "Is anyone purchasing any new equipment or upgrades?"

After they had made their purchase and selected what to have spent their KP on in their down time, Andrew lead them into the day's mission

One of the things that actually surprised Xander about how Andrew ran the game was that he didn't require that they make a specific budget and itemize things other than their weapons and specialized equipment, they just had a set monthly living cost depending on their accommodations and lifestyle.

"Wanda, while studying at the conclave, you are approached by a senior mage wearing a Ticorp employee pin, 'Miss Rosin, I am David Matsui, I have a lucrative matter that I'm told you and your associates might be able to help me with. Would you join me in a meeting room?'" Andrew started off.

Willow looked up, "I'd be happy to meet with you, Mr. Matsui, although I can't speak for my associates without first discussing the matter with them."

The run turned out to be more combat than anything they had done to before a small group of vampires that had set moved in to Ticorp free space. Ticorp wanted them dealt with and wanted any data that could be gathered to find out if the vampires had been paid to cause trouble in the Ticorp affiliated space.

It was a fairly simple mission and everything went fine, Hack and subvert security in the area briefly, sneak in and kill the four vampires. Just like in real life fire magic was very effective against the undead, that they had been provided intelligence on without attracting either LoneStar (the cops) or Ticorp internal security, while Faith and Jesse's characters were ransacking the house and loading anything portable of value into the delivery van that Jesse's character Jack had borrowed through a couple of intermediaries, Marcie and Xander's characters were hacking the dusted vampires computers.

Marcie rolled to defeat the ICE on the terminal that was in the home office.

"Sue, you are able to deactivate the system's security you start copying and scanning the contents, roll your perception," Andrew looks at the dice Marcie rolls. "Sue, you have discovered that the now deceased Vincent Capulet appears to be a member of Ticorp security."

This announcement was like kicking a hornet's nest, with hurried actions to remove any traces that they were there, the party finished what they were doing and left Ticorp territory returning to Alec's garage. His legitimate business was an auto repair shop that made modifications that were only slightly outside of the law. They contacted the trader that acted as escrow to get the balance of funds that were being held for completion of the job and after Faith's character Lia spoke to her fellow fixer they initiated a trace to find out where the money to pay for their job had come from.

"And that's where we leave our party this week," Andrew finished.

In their usual post game activity, they worked on modifications to their characters Willow and Marcie tried to get Andrew to reveal details what they would be facing in upcoming parts of the campaign. Johnathan and Jesse were busy offering advice about upgrading the boat that Xander's character lived on when Xander overheard Andrew and Willow.

" – Tucker was saying I should ignore this fake magic and go with summoning."

"But that's like really high level magic in the game," Willow said.

"There are ways to do it though." Andrew responded.

"I've read some of the novels to get a better feel for the game system, and other than some elemental summoning and summoning to speak with ghosts, it always ends badly." Willow said sharply.

"Well, this wouldn't be until your character has much more power" – Xander lost the rest of Andrew's response when Johnathan put the vehicle reference guide in front of him.

"If you go with these engines, you can get another five hundred liters of fuel and a couple hundred more km of range."

Xander gave his attention back to the conversation at hand but started to make plans.

After dinner that night Mom said she had some important news.

"Alex, Faith, there's something I need your help with," she looked at them both intently. "now that I'm receiving the fostercare stipend and Tony has started sending me money to help," Xander idly wondered if his father thought of the alimony and child support as helping. He had spent a couple of days with his dad since the separation, usually on Rory's fishing boat since that was an activity that didn't cost Tony anything other than gas and let them have something to do that allowed him to not talk to Xander about the divorce. "I can cut back a shift at the hospital and I'm planning on going back to school to finish up my RN. I need your help because even though I'm going to be working less, I'm going to be a lot busier. You guys have been great with helping to keep the house in good shape and that's part of what I need help with, but I also need you guys to not pull anymore stunts like the tattoos okay?"

Xander and Faith both nodded agreement.

"I'm sorry Aunt Jessica, it wasn't the best idea I've ever had," Faith apologized. "I hope it doesn't get you into any trouble. Aunt Viv isn't going to get into any trouble is she?"

"Faith, Honey, it's okay," Mom said taking the young woman's hand. "Vivian told me she put it down as something you already had so there's no worry there. I just need you, both of you, to think a little more before you act." She turned to Xander. "Alex, can you excuse us, I'd like to talk to Faith alone for a bit."

Alex got up and went upstairs. He left his door cracked so he could hear a little better.

"Faith, I'm actually kind of glad that you two decided to get tattoos," Xander heard his mom say. "It's a good example of things that can have permanent effects." Xander couldn't make out the next couple of sentences. "I was reluctant to bring it up after what happened to you, but we need to talk about sex." Xander remembered his own no nonsense birds and bees talk with his mother the healthcare worker.

He got up and shut the door going over to his bookshelf he pulled out a Rifts manual and the copy of The Poor Man's James Bond, he thought about Tucker Wells and what he knew about the incident with hell hounds and how Andrew had in later years said that he learned demon summoning from his brother. Tucker was a problem that they could nip in the bud. He was reading about simple poisons when there was a knock at the door. Xander casually pulled the Rifts book on top of the anarchist's field manual, "Yes."

Faith stuck her head in, she was actually blushing, "Your mom wanted you to come back downstairs."

Xander followed the dark haired girl back to the kitchen.

"Sorry to ask you to leave Alex, as busy as we're all going to be, I've got something to make life a little easier," She reached into her purse and pulled out two pagers, a black and a blue Motorola LS550 and a small manual. "This isn't a birthday present, we use them at work all the time, in fact, I actually got these from work, they are in the process of upgrading the doctors to alpha numeric pagers and IT is selling these off cheap." She set them in the center of the table. "choose which one you want."

Xander reached out and held his hand over the blue one, when Faith nodded, he picked it up. Turning it over, there was a label on the back that had a phone number on it. He saw his mom take a card out of her wallet and write his name and Faith's name next to numbers that were already written.

"The manual will tell you how to set them up. They have voicemail, but only eight message slots, so keep those cleared. I don't want to try to contact you and get a box full message. Keep them out of sight and on vibrate or silent at school. A lot of morons still think of them as being only for gang member s and drug dealers. this way if my schedule changes or I need to talk to you, I can reach you. but also with working for Rory and the little yard work and house cleaning business you have going I thought this would be helpful."

"Thanks Mom."

"Okay you two, I've got some bills to pay, but since my body clock isn't quite switched back to days, I'm going to put a movie on in about an hour."

Xander took that for the dismissal that it was and went back upstairs. A few minutes later Faith came in and sat on the bed. Knowing it was her without bothering to turn around, Xander hadn't bothered to put away what he was reading.

Seeing what he was reading, Faith looked at Xander, "just general research, or did you have a target in mind?"

"Tucker," Xander said without looking up.

"Andrew's brother?"

"Yeah, I had completely forgotten about him and the Hell Hounds." Xander said looking up.

"So you're thinking preemptive strike?"

"Yeah."

"Do we know that he has gone dark?"

"Well, if he's talking to Andrew about summoning, he's not exactly a white hat."

"Okay, but why now, we've got a lot of time before prom, and wasn't that his first time hitting the dark arts?"

"That we know of," Xander muttered making some notes.

"So, we watch him, we've got an in hanging out with Andrew." Faith offered. "If we hear or see anything, we take him out."

"Not waiting for that."

"Xander, look at me," Faith demanded.

Xander looked up.

"We agreed we're not taking action yet. Richard III gets a pass until later, Angel doesn't get dusted on sight, Why do you want to kill this guy who we don't know has done anything yet?"

"I don't want him talking to Willow about magic."

"None of the game group know she knows anything about magic, Tucker isn't part of the group, so why do you think that would happen?"

"Andrew is a boy, teenage boys try to impress girls, if he thinks talking about real magic will impress her, he might get his brother involved."

"So on the off chance that she might hear about magic we don't want her to, you're willing to pay that invoice."

"You weren't at Kingman's Bluff, you didn't see her two steps from ending the world, I don't want to see that."

"I get that, but are you ready to go that route?"

"Well it's been a few months, but I'm ready."

"I don't think we should do this at this yet. There's too many ways it can blow up on us."

Xander leaned back and thought for a moment, "Explain to me how it isn't a simple solution which keeps a known potential threat from ambushing us."

"Ripples, who knows what will happen in the next four years that may or may not lead to Tucker going Columbine with the hell hounds. Ripples we can guess it would cause, Andrew being drawn to the dark sooner. Let's face it, we live on the hellmouth, his brother being poisoned or shot isn't going to end well. Getting caught, if we get caught, we lose our ability to shape things. Once she knows things go bump in the night, Willow might cope, now it would destroy her. Darla is still out there, I thought she was our first major target?"

Xander closed the book, "Fine."

"Look Xander, from what Willow and I have talked about she is focusing on magics that use elemental energy and focus her inner energy. With all the times she's talked to me about cleansing and avoiding tainted energy, she'd be the first one to avoid the magics Tucker did in the future," Faith said placating him. "I'll talk to her, bring up what Andrew said and make sure she doesn't get involved. It shouldn't be too hard, she's already said that she's not real comfortable talking about magic with other people."

"Okay," Xander said feeling a little better. "You're right, let's focus first on Darla, and being ready for the Harvest."


	6. Chapter 6

For personal enjoyment not for profit, if you recognize it, I don't own it, just bending and folding it.

Chapter 6

Faith held the cool can against the fading welt on her forearm, there were times she missed having slayer healing. She had caught herself pretty good this morning while she and Xander were practicing with their bows. After the two youths showed him their awards from camp, Uncle Rory had given them bows and a membership to the local archery range as a birthday present. After they both had gotten a boar on their hunting trip, he mentioned the possibility of trying to get an archery deer tag. Taking the can away, she popped it open and took a swallow of the cold liquid. She walked over to where Gina was talking with Willow and Marcie.  
" - and Willow already tried talking me into joining, I just don't enjoy running just to run," Marcie was saying to Gina, a sophomore and the team Captain of the JV squad. There were a lot more kids than normal in Willow's back yard, but since it was the Sunday of Labor Day weekend and Willow's parents were hosting a barbecue and pool party for the cross country team and a few of their friends that wasn't surprising. Not that Willow's parents were there, they had made an appearance at the cross country meet the day before and cheered – politely and reservedly – for Willow who ran her first race on the JV team but had to leave this morning for a back to school speech at a college in Vermont. Aunt Jessica and Mrs. McNally were providing the adult supervision for the party. Xander had been right, the team was not very popular and on the girls side, they only had two alternates on the varsity and currently no alternates for the JV squad. Faith and Willow had both run in the JV girls race. On the boys side, the teams had a little more depth Xander had run in the boys race, but Jesse and one other boy were alternates for yesterday's race. Because of the small size of the squads, they practiced and travelled as one group, boys and girls, varsity and JV. Getting to know the girls on the team had been nice, Faith wouldn't call them all friends yet, but they were a social circle and a couple of the varsity girls had even invited the younger girls to hang out at the mall a couple times. They had even helped modify Willow's wardrobe a bit. She now had fewer of the preppy/parochial school style outfits that Xander had said were her norm the first time through and more casual but still nice combinations. Faith looked over and saw that Willow was wearing the bikini that they had bought on their last group outing when talk of this party started.  
Gina smiled at the younger girl, "Understood, it's just part of my job as team captain to try to recruit so we have a full squad with alternates, I'm the same way about swimming, last year I played water polo and the swim coach spent most of spring semester trying to recruit me. I swim laps to condition, not because I enjoy swimming laps so racing just doesn't appeal to me." She turned to Faith, "What happened there?" She asked indicating the welt.  
"Caught myself with a bow string this morning," Faith answered.  
"Hail the amazon queen," Gina said with a giggle. "Athlete, you do martial arts, your aunt was saying the fish and pork were both yours, and now you mention you do archery."  
Faith covered her left breast protectively. "I'm not cutting one of my boobs off, I don't have enough as is," she said with a laugh. "Hey, I was a city girl until I moved out here, the hunting and fishing is Uncle Rory's fault, it is fun though. Besides, I think the fish was actually Xander's catch." She looked around, "Also, even if I don't have any practical experience, I'm not ready to swear off men."  
The other three giggled.  
"So are you guys ready for school to start?" Gina asked. She looked at her two teammates, who nodded, "Remember coach wants us to wear our yellow team t-shirts on Tuesday and the red ones on Friday for the pep rally. Cross Country isn't really hyped as a sport, like football is, but especially with the varsity team winning the meet and you two having the best Frosh times, they will give us a minute out of the forty minute pep rally."  
"I can feel the school spirit already," Marcie quipped.  
"It's not too bad," Gina said. "Just the reality of high school."

Just the reality of high school.

The first week of school went about how Xander expected.  
Different: Being part of the team. Sitting with them at lunch. The gaming group being part of his circle of friends with Willow, he, and Jesse. Being introduced at the pep rally. Getting used to his enhanced senses being assaulted by twelve hundred noisy smelly kids in close proximity.  
The same: Cordie flouncing around in her cheer leader uniform. Larry being an ass and picking a fight with him - okay not the same.

It had happened again the first Friday coming out of history. Larry spent the class poking at him and making snide comments, asking if he was going to wear his daisy dukes uniform shorts to the pep rally. It was of course a different set of insults, but Xander remembered how it had gone before. As he stood up at the end of class, he made sure that all the pockets were closed on his backpack, two of his books had gotten damaged last time when his bag had gone flying. Not to mention the stake that was tucked into a built in sheath. He walked with the bag in his hand instead of putting it over his shoulder. Not having his bag to grab, Larry kicked Xander's heel trying to make him fall. Xander though was ready and Larry just barely clipped his foot.  
"Hold this," Xander said handing his bag to Jesse.  
"Getting your boyfriend to carry your books, Harris?"  
"What is your fucking problem Larry?" Xander asked turning to face the football player.  
"You, you little loser," Larry said pushing Xander.

Xander went with the shove not letting it push him off balance. "Piss off."  
"Fuck you Harris," Larry swung a big haymaker at Xander, which Xander promptly grabbed and used the lineman's momentum to shove him into the bank of lockers with a loud crash.  
"Mr. Blaisdal, Mr Harris, come with me," Mrs. Hewett, the girls cross country coach, said from the classroom they had just left. Xander retrieved his bag from Jesse and followed along. Larry was still muttering at him until Mrs. Hewett said, "Xander, good job trying to avoid a fight."  
She lead them into the athletic director's office.  
"Dave, can you call Mathews?"  
The AD picked up the phone and after a quick exchange he hung up. Coach Hewett was filling out what Xander recognized as referrals. Shortly they were joined by the freshman football coach.  
"Mathews, one of your athletes thought it would be a good idea to spend my class harassing another student and when that didn't get the reaction he wanted, he tried to start a fight." She went on to explain what had occurred and handed the papers to the AD.  
Mr. VanAtten looked at the papers and nodded. "Mr Harris, Mr Blaisdal, let me explain to you how we handle things. If we were to take this to Mr Flutie's office, Mr Blaisdal, you would be suspended from the team for the next two games, if you had landed a punch, it would be more. I have here two detention slips for disrupting class and harassing another student and a recommendation for a suspension for striking another student. Mr Harris, here is a detention slip for using profanity in the hall, I will pass this on to your coaches. Your coaches will deal with this internally. Don't make us make this an official matter. Dismissed."  
As Xander was leaving he heard coach Mathews telling Larry that he needed to get his shit together.  
Even more shocking was meeting the school librarian. The second week of school Xander's honors English class had an introduction to the library. The librarian introduced himself as Edward Post, a recent arrival from the British Museum. Faith, who was also in the class, raised an eyebrow looking at Xander. Xander wracked his brain and remembered that yes had been the librarian the first go around. He shook his head and mouthed, "later."  
At the end of their talk, one of their classmates asked why a PhD from the UK would be in Sunnydale.  
"There has actually been a program in place for the last fifty years," Mr Post explained. "I don't know if you are aware of how fascinating the history of this area is, but with the overlapping of several native tribes, Russian explorers, and Spanish colonies, there is much of interest. One of my colleagues who is now retired actually started it out of personal interest but I am also attached to UC Sunnydale's anthropology department." The Brit droned on, but whatever his official cover was Xander was certain he was a Watcher and if he was any relation to good old Gwen, Xander wasn't going to trust him.

The reality of Sunnydale high school was a totally outside of Faith's experience, with her mom moving periodically and the problems she had, she hadn't had a lot of friends her first trip through high school. She had only been in one honors class not four. She hadn't been on a team and the only older girls that had tried to be mentors definitely weren't giving good advice. Okay so maybe that meant that her clothes and hair style tended towards athlete norm than rocker/stoner chick, but that wasn't a bad thing.  
She and Xander had opted for German as it was a language neither one of them spoke. They planned to take achievement tests in French and Spanish and although they hadn't done more than speak it to each other, they had kept their skills in languages on the noncritical list of things to do.  
The computer class was simple, especially since Willow was teaching them both all kinds of tricks that they used a lot of their experience from the future to pick up quickly – they'd never be the hacker that Willow could become, but they would definitely be just behind her in the class rankings.  
Hearing from Xander how his run in went with Larry showed that at least initially, their planning was paying off.  
Meeting the Librarian the second week of school freaked her out. Hearing the name Post and seeing a family resemblance to Gwen gave her a cold feeling until Xander had a chance to tell her tell her that he remembered the librarian before Giles, although he hadn't remembered much of anything about him. They were both convinced he was a watcher but were not ready to approach him.  
With school, they cut down on their hours at uncle Rory's and gave up all but a few yards until after cross country season. After the first few weeks, they got into a good routine, Faith was happy.

Weeks passed, Xander was surprised at how busy he was but he was actually having fun, he knew in the back of his mind that reality would intrude sooner or later. Which wasn't to say that he and Faith were ignoring what they knew was coming, getting paid to work on yards gave them a reason to purchase a couple of machetes and put together some other weapons some of which would be easy to explain, a fire hardened stake worked pretty well for digging out weeds, others would be much more difficult. His mother's schedule allowed them time to spar seriously and work on things that weren't high school freshman typical, lock picking computer hacking skills, okay so maybe those weren't that weird for some high school freshmen, but definitely easier without having to duck parental supervision.

Sooner ended up being the middle of October, He and Faith went to the home football game with their friends and then to the Bronze afterwards, something Xander and Jesse had done a couple of times freshmen year the first time around. The club wasn't crowded, the football team was having a party at one of the rich kid's houses tonight to which their group wasn't invited.

"X," Faith whispered to him, "check out the guy in the denim jacket at the bar, I mean he looks like a 90210 high school student but a little out of place."

"So, perv or sucker," Xander asked looking at the guy in question, "and is he alone?"

"I don't see anyone else that obviously looks out of place."

"Okay, let's go check him out, if he's room temperature, you lead him out of public."

"Got it," Faith said tucking her crucifix around to the back of her neck so it was hidden under her hair.

Xander's heart sped up a little as he crossed the club coming to stand next to the possible vampire at the bar, he said to the bartender, "Coke and a glass of water no ice." While he was waiting for his drinks, he took a deep breath and smelled earth and stale blood. He caught Faith's eye and nodded.

She stepped up next to him as the bartender set the glasses on the counter and he paid for them.

"Too cheap to buy two drinks?" She huffed and turned to the vamp. "You wanna dance?"

"Hey!" Xander objected. But watched as Faith walked off with the demon. He picked up the coke and the water glass but dumped the water in the sink behind the bar. The bartender gave him a look but shrugged and went back to work. Xander made his way over to the table they'd been standing around.

"Who's Faith dancing with?" Jesse asked watching Willow group dance with Marcie and two of the girls on the CC team.

"Some guy," Xander said, "I've never seen him before so I'll keep an eye out for her," he continued as he emptied one of the bottles of holy water he carried into the empty water cup, he drank his coke and watched until the song ended. "I'll be back, watch my drink" he said to Jesse as he watched Faith head towards the restrooms with the Vampire following a few steps behind. He had less distance to cover so he timed it to enter the hallway just after the two. Luckily there was no one else in the hallway leading to the bathrooms so he quickened his pace.

"Faith, I'm sorry," he said causing the both the vampire and Faith to turn, the vampire now had his back to Faith. Xander knew what he was about to do would probably end in a fight whether or not this guy was really undead.

"Dude, fuck off, the lady wanted to dance with me," The Vampire exclaimed but didn't have a chance to say anymore as Xander pitched the holy water in the cup straight into his face. Any doubt was removed when the creature reacted like he'd been struck with acid, burns appearing instantly over his eyes, nose, and mouth as his face transformed with a pained hiss.

Faith didn't say anything, she was fully prepared for this, driving her punch stake between his ribs and into his heart from behind with a quick jab and withdraw motion. The Vampire dusted. Xander dropped the cup and pulled a second squeeze bottle of holy water out of his pocket, Faith and Xander looked around both ready in case the Vampire had friends, they weren't disappointed when a young woman dressed in out of date clothes came around the corner.

"Where's Brad?"

"Blond guy, denim jacket?" at the brunette's nod, "He's in the can."

"Okay –" she said but then vamped out and swung at Xander who was closer. He ducked deflecting the blow and drew his stake as Faith connected with the stun gun she'd pulled from her pocket, momentarily stopping the girl. Faith grabbed the vampire's purse strap using it to spin her around. Xander slammed his stake into the vampire and watched her crumble to dust that quickly disappated.

No threats jumped out at them so Faith ducked into the bathroom to discard the female's purse.

"What the fuck was that?" Xander looked up to see Jesse standing in the hallway.

"Jesse."

"Xander, what the hell was that?" his friend said with a note of panic.

"Jesse, calm down, I'll explain."

"Calm down – I just saw a woman explode."

"Jesse, come over to my house when we leave here and I will explain everything."

"Okay, I'll listen – Chad sent me to find you guys, he says it's time to go."

Faith came out of the bathroom, "Jesse?" she said seeing their friend.

"He came to find us, Chad wants to get going." Xander explained.

And just like that reality changed.

Soon they were all piled into Chad's SUV, when they got to Xander's house after hugs and high fives respectively from their friends he, Faith, and Jesse got out of the car and headed into the house. Xander's mom was at work so Jesse first called his house to let them know he was staying over and then Xander called the hospital to let his mom know that Jesse was staying. Once finished, they got drinks and sat down in the living room putting MTV on in the back ground.

"What was that?" Jesse asked.

"That was a vampire."

"Bullshit."

"Okay what did it look like to you?" Xander asked

"There was a girl who tried to take a swing at you and then a crackling noise and poof she was gone," Jesse said. "Now tell me what the hell that was."

"I did," Xander said. "That was a Vampire,"Xander said, "That was a blood sucking demon."

"How do you expect me to believe it?" Jesse asked eyes a bit wide.

"Let's talk about some more believable facts first," Faith answered.

Jesse nodded.

"First of all, last year, the state of Massachusetts with a population of about six million people had 31 deaths attributed to wild animals half of them dogs. So that's fifteen deaths by dog in a population of six million, lots of Mass is rural, more space for wild animals. Since I've been here, I've heard of four deaths due to attacks by wild dogs. Sunnydale has a population of approximately thirty-five thousand. Do those numbers make any sense?" Faith knew that Mrs. McNally worked at the hospital with Aunt Jessica so he had probably heard the same things.

"No, those numbers are way out of line." Jesse said

"Okay, we've been in school for a month and a half, have you noticed anything you would call a gang presence like you see on the news and in movies? Or for that matter, see gangs at the mall or at the Bronze tonight?"

"No, there's plenty of assholes but no real groups of gang bangers."

"Okay so then do you want to explain why we've all heard the stories gang members on PCP that attack with barbecue forks and usually go for the neck?"

"I can't." Jesse said sounding kind of numb.

"Stay with us here Jesse," Xander said.

"California two years ago had an average high school graduation rate of eighty percent. Sunnydale has a graduation rate of seventy percent. We don't have a high poverty rate or high unemployment, so why is our dropout rate fifty percent higher than average when the average includes areas with much higher poverty and unemployment?" Faith asked.

"That doesn't make sense."

"One last thing," Xander said. "All our lives, out parents have said don't invite anyone into the house, no welcome mats or decoration that imply an invitation. So if you put it together with the animal attacks and barbecue fork attacks, what mythical creature cannot enter without an invitation and would leave two wounds on the neck."

Jesse just sat and stared at the tv through another video. "Vampires," he said quietly.

"Jesse, you can ignore this if you want to," Faith offered. "We'll put on a movie, crack into Uncle Rory's beer in the basement fridge and have few drinks. I'll even flash you my tits and tomorrow morning, you can wake up with a headache and just decide that this was a weird and fucked up dream."

"But it isn't, it's real," said Jesse.

"Unfortunately."

"Okay, so how do you know about this stuff? Why did you have to tell us about it?" Jesse said looking at Faith.

Faith looked at him, "I told you about the witch that I knew back in Boston, the one that gave me my first charm." She held up her wrist to show off the magic charm that she and Willow had made. "She warned me to watch out for some of the dark stuff, not that I'd seen any of it in Boston. One of the first things Aunt Jessica told me was to be indoors after dark as much as possible and never invite anyone into the house which made sense in the neighborhood mom and I lived in, but once I got here and saw the white picket fences, seemed like overkill for this shiny small town. I've read some of it in the books that Willow and I got but I didn't know it was really there until tonight. Before tonight, it was just potential. I also think that it's kind of like Peter Pan, once you don't believe in it, your mind will rationalize it away which is why your Mom and Aunt Jessica can see and hear about what they do at the Hospital and rationalize it away. There's a saying, 'If you hear hoof beats don't expect to see a zebra when you turn around expect to see a horse'. So even if dog attacks and gangs on PCP doesn't make any sense it makes more sense than vampires."

"So what do we do?" Jesse asked.

"Well, I think if we start talking to our parents we would just end up in a padded room somewhere," Xander offered. "I'd say don't travel alone at night, wear a cross or other symbol of faith you believe in, when not in school carry one of these," he said handing across his stake, a kubotan with a pointed end. "Maybe a bottle of holy water. But really I think we should just generally run like hell towards groups of people if we see anyone we think isn't human."

"But you guys killed that one tonight."

"It was a vampire – not really alive – can we say geeked?" Xander asked using Shadowrun slang. "Or dusted? I'd really rather not use the term killed."

"Yeah, probably not a good idea to talk about you killing somebody."

"We got lucky," Xander said rolling the sleeve up on his shirt showing off a dark forming bruise on his forearm where he had blocked the blonde's swing, "she didn't look like she was that strong but even though I caught it just right, didn't take it head on, that's going to leave a hell of a bruise." He got up and went into the kitchen to grab a bag of ice. Returning to the living room he sat down putting ice on his arm.

"Okay but that thing was at the Bronze, shouldn't we warn people?"

Faith just shrugged.

"Yeah – you're right – what do we tell them? Everybody in this town already knows there are wild animals and random gang attacks," Jesse said with a sigh.

"So we form our packs to travel in and watch out for each other," Xander said. "But the truly screwed up thing is this doesn't really change anything, we just now know why our parents want us to be safe and some of what makes this town dangerous."

"Okay so we don't tell everybody, but what about Willow, or the rest of the team?"

"Let's talk to her tomorrow after the meet. Maybe we can tell the rest of the team that the guy Faith was dancing with was a real creep that tried to slip her drugs then hit Xander when he tried to step in."

Jesse got a mischievous look on his face, "Faith, I know I don't really have a choice in believing in vampires, but can I still see your tits?"

Faith just flipped him the bird and threw a pillow at him.

Saturday morning Jesse's dad picked them up to drop them off at school for a cross country meet. This was an away meet so they had a two hour bus ride.

When Xander took off his sweatshirt and their friends on the team saw Xander's bruise they asked questions.

"Galahad here decided to step in and try to protect me last night," Faith told them. "That guy I was dancing with before we left was trying to slip me a mickie and get me to duck out the fire exit with him, I was just telling him to piss off when Xander stepped in." Faith noticed that Willow looked relieved.

"Asshole took a swing at me with something," Xander said indicating his arm. "It was enough to make him take off though, and we're both alright so that's all that matters."

There were general noises of approval and statements that they would watch out for each other from the rest of the team.

When they were stretching before their race, Willow got Faith aside. "Is it wrong that I'm actually kind of glad that it was a creep that you guys ran into last night?"

Faith gave her an inquisitive look.

"Well, I kind of thought when we were leaving last night and Jesse looked freaked out after going to find you two that maybe he walked in on you making out or something." Willow said with an embarrassed blush.

"Nah, Xander's cute – and nice – and yeah objectively very dateable, but thanks to being family I live with – even if he's not really that close blood wise – he's off limits for me," Faith said. "Not that I'm all that ready for dating. But he's also pretty clueless, so if you want to go out with him, you will probably have to be the one to make the first move."

"Do you know if he likes me like that?" Willow asked.  
"Boys don't talk about their feelings very well," Faith said switching into her next stretch. "But from what I've seen, he views you and Jesse as family, whether there is more than that, I don't know." She noticed Chad looking at her from where the boys were stretching, "Of course, if you figure out boys can you let me in on the secret?"  
Willow snorted a laugh.

That evening after returning to Sunnydale, Willow came over to the Harris household

Willow understandably freaked out when they told her the truth but between the same evidence they had given Jesse and the fact that she had seen magic work from the books that she and Faith bought and those same books mentioned evil spirits, Faith pointing out the spell for revoking invitation finally pushed her over the edge of belief.

Both Jesse and Willow were on board with the general rule of be careful and avoiding. Xander Faith noticed that Monday morning Willow was wearing a new gold chain with a Star of David on it and she and Jesse both gratefully accepted squeeze bottles of holy water. The following week was an away game and the group once again ended up at the Bronze. This time it was Xander who spotted the RT, his new term for Vampires.

He said it was a matter of focusing their senses on the way vampires moved. Faith looked and noticed the alternating stillness and quick motions. When the vampire in question started leading a girl that neither of them knew towards the fire exit, Xander and Faith ducked away from their friends and followed. They caught up with them as the vampire was going to feed on the girl while standing behind her. Faith could smell the blood and didn't even give the vampire time for his yellow eyes to more than widen before he was dust. Xander hung back to make sure they didn't get blind sided if the vamp wasn't alone. The girl seemed to be very out of it, but wasn't bleeding so they just left her alone.

A.N.: other than the prolog scene, this is the first chapter I've switched POV in the middle of the chapter, I think it work within the context of transitioning from summer to school.


	7. Chapter 7

For personal enjoyment not for profit, if you recognize it, I don't own it, just bending and folding it.

Chapter 7

Xander adjusted his sport coat and tie. Chad was supposed to be there in a few minutes to drive them to homecoming. Mom had said it was okay to go to dances, but that neither he nor Faith could date individually until sophomore year, which made the subject of Willow liking him a little easier to deal with. He didn't think his mom had any illusions about being able to prevent her either he of Faith from engaging in things she would prefer they wait for, with her work schedule it was almost impossible, but she trusted them, even if she made sure that they had lots of things scheduled so they had less free time to get up to mischief.

His musing was interrupted by the sound of giggling. All three girls had chosen to get ready at the Harris household. Xander finished adjusting his tie and left his bedroom to go downstairs to wait.

His mom was sitting in the living room when he came downstairs, some seventies rock on the radio. Xander saw that she had the camera out to take pictures of the kids.

"So ready for your first high school dance?"

"Mom, we've gone to other dances after games."

"Well yes, but this is the first one where you have a date," His mother said amusement in her eyes. "You'll do fine, just make sure you pay attention to Willow. I know boys your age often don't like to dance but do dance with her." His mom's monologue was interrupted by the doorbell. She wave Xander off as he stood to get the door. Ushering Chad and Jesse into the living room she turned to Chad. "Chad, it's nice to see you again, how are your folks doing?" Xander's mom had met most of the team parents at the cross country meets she'd been able to make it to to cheer for Xander and Faith.

"They're good Mrs. Harris. They wanted me to thank you for letting us come back here after the dance." Chad said fidgeting. Part of allowing Faith and Xander to go to the semi-formal was an agreement that they would come back to the Harris household immediately after the dance let out.

"Chad, you seem like a nice boy so I'm not going to make this too long. Please remember that Faith is only fourteen but she can take care of herself. You guys have a good time and I'll have some snack and sodas ready when you get back." She turned and walked upstairs

"Dang Harris, I thought your mom was going to give me a harder time that that, you're sure it's okay that I'm taking your cousin out?"

"Well, mom has pretty much said neither of us can date in any real way until next year and besides like she said, Faith can take care of herself and you're a good guy."

Any further conversation was stopped by the girls coming down stairs. They had fun at the dance, Xander danced with Willow mostly, but also Faith and Marcie and Gina, Willow and Faith made sure to include Johnathan and Andrew in their group.

The homecoming dance started Xander and Willow unofficially dating. They were almost always in a group so this mostly meant sitting closer together and a few more hugs, although they did share some rather nice kisses and made out rather steamily on New Year's Eve.

After several hours of research and phone calls to regional offices Xander did make another deliberate change to the timeline. He sent letters to the head of the audit division in several IRS offices in other parts of the country. From listening to Cordy vent for hours on end about her dad's misdeeds and all the things the IRS agents asked her about, he had a fairly detailed picture of things and knew that Cordy's grandmother was still alive and therefore in control of her trust fund. Xander hoped that at least that would be spared being gutted by the crumbling of Mr. Chase's scheme. A few weeks later, both Faith and Xander observed a change in Cordelia's demeanor, she was still very sharp tongued, but lost a bit of her haughty demeanor.

Xander did go out for the swim team and convinced both Jesse and Johnathan to go with him. Being exposed to the whole team from tryouts on, it was a nice surprise that there really were only a couple of jerks on the team – most of the rest of the team was content to just swim their events and get things done. There was no sign that the coach had started his enhancement project.

The week before spring break, Faith and Xander were returning some books that they had used for Academic Decathlon, she'd offered to make the returns because the more Willow practiced focusing her magic, the less comfortable she felt in the library, which Faith thought was due to the Hellmouth and when she had shared this idea with Xander, they both thought it was a positive sign that she was not comfortable with the dark energy.

Xander had wandered into the stacks to look for something, Faith wasn't sure what as she set her books on the counter.

"Good afternoon Miss Lehane, I was hoping to speak with you." Mr. Post said

Faith suddenly on guard replied, "Did I miscount, are these overdue?"

"No, Miss, not about that. I've heard your teachers and coaches speak of your abilities and was hoping I could offer you some training to maximize your potential" He explained. "There are things that I can offer to teach you, not normally covered in school."

Faith decided to try to put him on the defensive, "Is this the part where you tell me how special I am and how no one can understand the things that I'm going through? But you know what it's like and can help me be special?"

The Brit was taken a back, "Well, yes."

Faith let him hang for a moment then went for the jugular.

Faith dropped her voice, "Look, you Limey bastard, just because my mom's in jail and I live in a single parent household doesn't make me an easy target for perverts like you."

"Miss, I'm sorry that wasn't what I meant at all." Post stammered. He looked at her and Faith could tell he was trying to find a way to salvage his position. His eyes went to Faith's wrist where she wore her charm. "Your charm, does it have the effect that you were told it would?"

Faith thought for a second deciding whether or not to give him an inch. Deciding that it would be impossible to fly completely under the radar she spoke, "Yes, a friend of mine helped me make this and yes it does what the book she had said it would."

"The combination of your skills led me to believe you might be the right person for learning special skills and a talent for magic certainly supports this. That is one of the things for which I can provide you training."

"Look Nigel, just because you recognize a charm I'm wearing doesn't mean I'm going to trust you." Faith said. "I warn you, I used a baseball bat on the knee of the last guy that tried to take advantage of me."

"I assure you Miss Lehane, I have no intentions to harm you or mistreat you." Post replied settling himself.

"Good, because Faith also has friends and family who will do anything to make sure she's safe," Xander said from the corner of the counter causing Post to jump a second time.

"Now, I might call that strike one against you," Xander stated. "For someone who doesn't want to harm my cousin, I find it odd that I had a sudden unexplainable desire to be elsewhere upon entering the library."

Post paled, "I apologize for that, I thought it would be best if Miss Lehane and I speak alone."

"Then ask."

"Again, Miss, I apologize."

"So you want to teach me magic?" Faith asked.

"If you show a talent for it among other skills," Post replied, looking over to where Xander was standing.

"Mr. Post, I'm willing to listen to what you have to say, but until I trust you a whole lot more, I'm not willing to spend time alone with you," Faith told him.

"Understood," Post replied.

"Besides if what you want to discuss is magic, I have a friend who has some talent who might also like whatever teaching you have."

"Maybe," was Post's reply

Post looked around the Library to make sure there was no one else, "The world is older than we know…" – he went into the standard watcher introduction speech – "When the most recent slayer was called, one of the council's seers said 'a girl with potential from the city that sparked the revolution is shrouded near the mouth of hell to the west,' there are more than one Hellmouth in the world and more than one city that sparked revolution, since I am the watcher who currently observes Sunnydale I was tasked with locating you if you were here."

"Okay you've said potential now twice and I'm not thinking it's because of my English grades." Faith said.

"Yes, the Council identifies girls that have the potential to be called as a slayer and make sure they receive the proper training. You are actually much older than the typical discovered potential so it is thought that it will be unlikely that you are called, but we would be remiss in not bringing you under the supervision of the Council." Post explained.

"Supervision?"

"Yes, normally here in the states, we would bring in a female watcher who would become your guardian."

"I'm perfectly happy with my Aunt Jessica, thank you very much," Faith stated firmly.

"Yes, and in California, at your age, your opinion would be taken into account by the courts before change of permanent guardianship could be effected," Post answered.

"Just so we're clear, that would also make me much less likely to cooperate with you people." Faith said.

"I see that."

"So, since you aren't going to go that way, what do you propose?"

"As I've stated, the basic training includes martial arts, research languages, and demonology."

"I'm not going to be summoning demons." Faith told him giving him a look.

"Not the summoning of demons, learning to identify the more common ones and knowing what breeds of demon are neutral and what to look out for in the dangerous ones."

"And the magic lessons?"

"As I said if you show an aptitude for it then there are things I can teach you. Most slayers don't practice magic though because the majority of their access to mystic energies are tied up in their slayer abilities. That being said, I would be happy to assist your friend in their studies."

The rest of the spring continued on, Faith's schedule didn't change much. After observing Faith and Xander's Hapkido class, Post decided that was adequate for the time being for martial arts especially as they were both testing for their blue belt and had begun working with the dan bong, short stick. He was surprised that she spoke French but set some beginning Greek and Latin for her. Demonology was just reading and talking about references once a week.

Uncle Rory had moved on from just having them doing general clean up around the business and washing the cars that customers were picking up, which provided them with some nice tip money over and above the cash Rory was paying them, to teaching them car repair using his project cars as the learning tools. Rory didn't do paint or upholstery at his shop, but they learned most other things from engine and electrical to basic dent repair.

Having Post provide instruction for Willow did lead to another significant change. Willow's discomfort with the library led Mr. Post to the discovery of the location of the Hellmouth and caused him to move his research library to a house that the Watcher council purchased near UCS. Willow, under Post's tutelage, developed psychic shields to prevent the energy of the Hellmouth from affecting her abilities.

They had staked several vampires, but no sign of Darla yet.


	8. Chapter 8

For personal enjoyment not for profit, if you recognize it, I don't own it, just bending and folding it.

Chapter 8

The Saturday after school ended they attended Aunt Jessica's graduation, before the end of the summer she would be an RN. Mrs. McNally threw a big party for her that went late into the evening.

The next morning, Faith watched Xander and Willow kiss goodbye as Willow headed off to a six week computer camp. Faith hugged her goodbye and watched Willow get into her parents' car and drive off.

"She's a different person than the Willow I met," Faith observed.

"Yeah, we've all gotten a lot more confident," Jesse said, "Not to mention running has given Willow killer legs."

Xander smacked Jesse lightly on the back of the head. "That's my girlfriend you're talking about."

"Are you denying that she has great legs?" Jesse asked with a smirk, turning to bring his hands up to defend himself. He and Willow had only started taking Hapkido classes with Xander and Faith a couple months ago so he knew Xander was just playing around.

"No, no I'm not," Xander smiled.

"So anything we're doing with the watcher gone back to jolly old England?" Jesse asked, changing the subject. Jesse hadn't taken part in the lessons that Faith and Willow had with the Post, but they had told him about everything they studied. Faith confided in the others that a lot of the accounts she read about slayers ended with the slayer dead and didn't seem to include much about the council doing much more than providing some training and information to point the slayer at the thing that killed them.

Post was on a trip home as the summer solstice was a historic time of ebb in the Sunnydale Hellmouth's energies. He was due to return in early August

"Well, he's hired us to not only take care of the yard, but look after the house he just bought, but as far as other stuff, just some extra training and then working for Uncle Rory," Faith answered. She and Xander had a full summer lined up with the lawns they mowed and working for Uncle Rory, but they had talked about what other changes they could make to the time line without causing a backlash before they were ready. Uncle Rory had told Xander that he was going to give Xander a car for his sixteenth birthday and so they spent a lot of their time at the garage working on a '83 Chevy Van. Even though he didn't think it would happen in the way he had originally planned it, he and Jesse still talked about taking a road trip after high school and Uncle Rory, whose trip was actually the inspiration for this, supported it. By his logic the van with its seven passenger capacity and captain's chairs that could turn around to face the bench seat in the back where a table could be set up or converted into a bed, was the perfect vehicle. Xander had told Faith that he suspected it had more to do with the fact that the back seat could be pulled fairly easily and then Rory could send Xander to pick up parts up to and including a transmission or an engine block. But they weren't going to complain. Having a vehicle that could carry people or things with some discretion was a plus in her book. The way that both Xander and Willow blushed when Jesse called it a shag wagon was pretty priceless too.

Faith and Xander both received emails almost daily from Willow for the first two weeks she was gone and then the emails started to taper off. Faith just assumed their red headed friend was busy and having fun but she noticed that the tone of the emails she sent to Xander got less and less gushy. It came to a head when Willow returned from camp, she came over to Xander and Faith's. Faith's didn't have to be in the room, in the quiet house, it was possible to listen to the conversation or hear most of it anyway.

"Xander, I've got something I've got to tell you."

"What's wrong?"

"I cheated on you while I was at camp."

"You're dating somebody else now?"

"No, they made it pretty clear that it was only while we were at camp."

"So are you breaking up with me?" Faith could hear Xander's hurt.

"I don't want to – I don't know –"

"When you say you cheated on me how do you mean?"

"Well kissing and stuff –"

"So you made out with some guy even though he said he wasn't looking for anything but somebody to mack with at camp?"

"It wasn't like that."

"So what was it like?" Faith heard Xander get up and walk across the room.

"When I got to camp, I went running the first day before breakfast – I'm glad I did since the majority of the camp was sitting in either lectures or computer rooms – At dinner that night, Janey, who was in my project group, asked me if she could run with me –" long pause "- the next morning, she joined me on my run. We got along so well – she was funny and beautiful – the second week I noticed that when we were showering – the cabins had group showers like gym class – that she was looking at me. That Friday she kissed me when we were getting dressed after showering – I was flustered I was confused – but it was nice. When it happened again a couple of days later it was like it was our little secret –"

"Did you mention you have a boyfriend to her?"

"I did, she told me this was different."

"Was it?"

"we made out once, but really we had to keep things secret so we acted like just good chums." and like I said she told me that it was just while we were at camp."

"Is it more than just chums?"

"like I said she told me that it was just while we were at camp."

"Is that what you think? – Or want?"

"Think, it was nice, but kissing you is nice too – and – I don't know."

Silence

"Have –"

"Pardon?"

"Have –"

"'Have' what?"

"You said 'Have a boyfriend'."

"Well my mom would say that I can't actually date until this year but you and I both talked about that, but I thought we considered ourselves boyfriend girlfriend or at least planned to be this year. That's what I thought anyway."

"I'd like that," Willow said in a very small voice, "but I don't want to hurt you."

"We weren't supposed to be dating technically, so I'm willing to give it a try. If you want to date anyone else, boy or girl, I don't want to find out afterwards."

"I promise."

The next two weeks had been a bit tense as Willow and Xander danced around each other. That weekend to celebrate Willow being back, their gaming group had a campaign party at the Harris house, Willow Faith and Marcie in Faith's room and the boys sacked out in Xander's room.

Faith was getting her friends situated when Marcie asked Willow, "Willow, what's up with you and Xander? You seem jumpy around him."

"I made out with somebody at camp, I told Xander when I got home," Willow confessed looking embarrassed. "He said he's okay with it, how his mom said he couldn't date until sophomore year, but it's a little weird."

"Wow, most guys would go ballistic," Marci said.

"My cousin's pretty cool," Faith observed.

"Yeah, but I almost feel worse because he's being so forgiving about it," Willow said ducking her head.

"Well, that's something you're going to have to work out for yourself," Faith told her redheaded friend. She knew from talking to Xander that he figured that Willow just wasn't ready to admit that she liked girls more than boys.

"So should I turn the boys down if one of them suggests spin the bottle or truth or dare?" she grinned, "Or should I suggest it myself."

Marcie did end up suggesting truth or dare which turned out to be a lot of fun until Jessie wearing blush and eyeshadow from one of Marcie's dares dared Marcie and Faith to kiss. Both girls had already used the dares as excuses to kiss each of the boys, well Marcie had, Faith had noticed Xander giving Jessie a hard stare when it looked like he was going to suggest Faith and Xander make out. Two turns later, his suggestion that the two girls make out. Marcie got up to move over next to Faith, but Faith held a hand up.

"Jesse, I'll do this, it's just kissing, but when you get dared to kiss Xander or Andrew are you going to wuss out?" Faith said looking at the boys.

Jesse's face got red, "Marcie can I change that request?"

Marcie nodded after a moment and they went back to the game although the dares stopped being about kissing and the mood lost some of its energy.

Xander and Willow's relationship seemed to calm down by the time Xander's birthday rolled around, Aunt Jessica even let Xander take Willow out on a date, okay a group date where he drove with Jesse taking Marcie and Johnathan taking Faith, but a date none the less. Faith hadn't really clicked with Chad after homecoming but they did remain friends.

Faith and Xander had talked about things they could change. The first plan of the summer after they verified in the newspaper that Hemery High did actually have its gym burn down was to mail a post card to a watchers council address they'd gotten from Mr. Post's papers saying "W Merrick out of picture, B Summers in trouble due to broken watch," hoping that they could keep Buffy from spending as much time under psych care as she had in their first life. Rather than draw attention to Sunnydale, Xander dropped it in a mail box in Van Nuys when he was on a parts run with Brian from the garage. Once they hit the end of July and Xander had his license, they felt they were ready to execute some more plans.

Their next action came as a target of opportunity.

The week before his birthday they were working at Rory's. Xander was only half listening when the college guy was hitting on Faith, okay it was creepy, but he admitted that even at fifteen, she was really good looking and it did happen. Most of the guys backed away quickly when she talked about her freshman year in high school, but some didn't. She could take care of herself. His ears perked up when he heard Delta Kappa Zeta. Then he was listening as close as he could without getting caught. Skip or Chip, or whatever his name was, was trying to impress Faith first with his car, a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee, and then with how he was selected as one of the Summer guard at the Fraternity house. When he was handing over the keys, he was inordinately proud of his aftermarket alarm that could start the car so that he could run the AC before getting in on a hot day. Once Chip had left with his friend in a convertible, Xander snagged the remote off the peg board. He knew Brian wasn't going to get to this until after lunch and separated the remote from the keys. He stepped out the back gate and walked the block to the stereo/car alarm shop that they traded work with. It didn't raise an eyebrow when he bought a replacement remote with cash and had them write it up for Rory's shop, just like he'd done a half dozen times before. When he got back, Faith raised an eyebrow in question but he just said "Later." It was only the work of a couple of minutes to key in the remote to the car, he even tested the start function before hanging the keys back on the peg.

That night, they were hanging out in basement.

"So what was with the Jeep today?" Faith asked. "Guy was a smarmy prick but that's not all that new."

"Did we ever tell you about reptile boy?"

Faith's brow furrowed for a moment, "Demon at the college – you're saying it was that frat?"

"Yeah."

"So did you copy his house keys or something?"

"No, I'm thinking something a little more spectacular, a redneck ANFO car bomb using his alarm to trigger it," he said holding up the spoofed remote.

They cased the house for two nights noting that none of the three guys living there seemed to have overnight guests. Then watched for their opportunity. On Tuesday the jeep was backed up next to the entrance which they thought was the kitchen that morning around three a.m. they pulled the van into the Delta Kappa parking lot. They waited for a few minutes figuring they could pretend to be kids making out if anyone stuck their head out. Seeing no activity in the house, they went into action, they moved three jerry cans of gas that they had seen on a dirt bike trailer that was in the lot up against the house behind the Jeep. They then placed a dozen file boxes full of home mixed fertilizer explosive, something that Xander had some experience with his first go around, a few sandbags to direct the charge were all loaded into the back of the Jeep. They wired a couple of large firework shells up to the cigarette lighter and drove away. Then around the block and as they drove past the house, Faith triggered the remote. The effect was spectacular, they could see the house silhouetted by the explosion behind it and two of the front windows blew out.

A little after dawn, they were back in the van driving to the Watcher's house from there they ran around the campus towards the end of their run, their route took them by Fraternity row, first through the park behind the houses. They could see through the trees, that their bomb had had the intended effect mostly destroying the house.

They were going to run down the opposite side of the street but saw cones and a cop car blocking off the street the house was on. They could see that the house was about almost completely burned out. Most of the front wall was still standing but the second story was more than half collapsed.

Their next action was was both more and less dangerous. They had been watching robot Ted for the last six months, when they first checked on him the neighbors said he had been married but that no one had seen his wife for several years. They had confirmed through a public records search that even though he looked to be in his thirties, Ted Buchanan at that address had married four times in the last thirty-five years. Right after Post had returned from London, they acted.

"So what do we do on the outside chance that Ted is actually a human at this time?" Faith asked.

"Well at that point, we hide the stun gun and scream for somebody to call an ambulance."

Ted's next door neighbor was one of their regular yard customer. They were also being paid to come by the Millers for the next two weeks to pick up newspapers and make sure that there wasn't any mail left in their box while they were on vacation so they knew that there wouldn't be anyone looking over from that side of the fence if they had to come back later. Shortly after they got to work, Mrs. Miller left to take her son to swimming lessons as she had before when they'd been working for her. Xander intentionally dropped some of the trimmings he was making into Ted's yard.

Faith rang the doorbell

"Mr. Buchanan?" she asked when Ted answered the door.

"Yes, can I help you Miss?"

"My cousin and I are doing some work for the Millers and we accidentally dropped quite a bit of clippings into your yard. We'd like to clean up after our selves because we don't want you or the Millers to think that we do that kind of work."

"That's the kind of attention to detail that you don't see much anymore, I'll meet you around at the gate."

Once they were out of sight of the street, Faith zapped him, and pushing him so that his arm scrapped against the stucco of the house as he fell.

"Yeah that pretty much says robot," Xander observed looking at the tear in the skin of Ted's arm that showed mechanical parts underneath the surface. Faith quickly took out a knife and made a small cut in the Robot's neck no blood and revealed some wiring confirming that it wasn't just an advanced prosthetic. Faith went to lift Ted,

"Oof – Xander give me a hand with this guy, he's heavier than he looks." The cousins quickly carried Ted inside the house. Xander retrieved a small sledge from the can he had outside. Remembering the stories about this guy from Buffy, he wasn't going to deal with Ted getting back up. Inside the quiet of the house, the sound of Xander disassembling Ted with a sledge hammer was rather loud. The two teens quickly exited and cleaned up the branches they had dropped and went back to doing their work on the Miller's yard.

That afternoon, they slipped through the gate in the alley and let themselves back into the house. They made a quick search of the house to verify that there weren't any security or surveillance systems, finding none, they got down to a more thorough search of the house. The house yielded only a few things of note, a lock box that was very heavy for its size and an odd electrical connection that must have been Ted's charging station in the master bedroom.

"How could he have made this in the fifties and have it last this long?" Faith asked looking at the charging unit.

"I'm going to go with Hellmouth," Xander answered.

Faith nodded.

The bunker under the garage yielded more. Xander steeled himself to look in the bunk room where as a teenager, the first time, he had seen Ted's wives. He searched this time but found nothing other than a box under the bunks each with a wedding dress and wedding photo.

He and Faith searched and found another room which had been turned into a workshop where Ted the robot was built. After they made sure that there wasn't another Ted just ready to go online, they left the shelter. Taking the lockbox back to the van, they drove to the Watcher's house.

"Miss Lehane, I wasn't expecting to see you today," Edward Post greeted them.

"Mr. Post, We've encountered a situation that we need your help with." Faith spoke quickly putting anxiety into her voice.

"What seems to be the matter?" Faith's watcher asked.

"We were attacked by a humanoid robot."

"Really Miss Lehane that is quite preposterous." Post said stiffening.

"Let us show you then."

"Alright then Miss Lehane but this is hardly putting you in my good graces." Her watcher said following her out to the driveway.

"I'll go in the back and let you in the front door," Xander said as he headed to his van.

Returning to Ted's house, he cautiously entered the back door and saw that Ted was still on the floor. A minute later, Xander saw Faith and Mr. Post coming up the walkway. When the doorbell rang he answered standing so he wasn't in view of the street. Faith led Mr. Post into the kitchen where Ted's body was on the floor.

"Good lord," the watcher gasped.

"Like I was telling you, Xander and I were cleaning up some branches that we dropped over the fence when Mr. Buchanan tripped going up the stairs, he hit his arm against the rail. I thought he had cut himself so I came over to help. I shrieked when I saw that he wasn't human. He grabbed me and Xander came to help as I fought him off. We kind of got carried away."

"The first thing I could grab was the sledge I have for driving garden stakes,"Xander said trying to sound sheepish.

"Well yes, understandable, one doesn't see a robot masquerading as a human very often." Post looked around,"You two stay here." He left and searched the house, then led them out to the garage. Xander and Faith hadn't placed the rug back over the trap door. Faith and Xander waited while he explored the bunker.

"Faith good job bringing this to my attention. I will take care of things from here."

That evening, Faith and Xander were in the Harris garage the lock box was easily opened with a pry bar.

"Why does a robot need a bug out fund?" Faith asked looking at the bundles of cash and paper wrapped rolls of coins. Examining the stacks, she saw American Gold Eagles and several coins from other countries.

"I don't know, habit programmed in from his creator? But the cash is all from the seventies and later, I guess getting gold coins became more difficult." Xander said thumbing through the bills.

"Well, this is a small fortune, but most of it doesn't really do us any good. The cash we can spend but we sure can't draw attention to ourselves and we're going to have to sit on these coins at least until you are eighteen, because right now, we don't have any way of turning them into cash unless you want to tell either your mom or Uncle Rory about this," Faith said setting the heavy coins back into the box.

"So are you ready to go after our next target?"

"Yeah, do you want to involve Jesse and Willow?"

"No, not yet."

Saturday morning, they loaded their yard tools and a few extra things into the van just after dawn. Early weekend morning on Fraternity row was quiet in the summer. Xander pulled up next to the abandoned frat house that held Sunday and her gang. The two entered the kitchen through the unlocked door. Stakes and machetes drawn.

Finding the kitchen empty Xander quickly pulled down the curtains obscuring the windows letting morning sunlight in. Just as Xander was pulling the last curtain down the first of Sunday's gang came into the kitchen, a long haired skater type and a chubby redhead, the skater lunged at Xander but pulled up short singed as he realized the brightness was from direct sunlight, not the diffuse light through the curtains that had been, Xander swung with his machete hitting the vamp in the arm then followed through with the stake dusting him. His companion didn't have time to organize her thoughts though as Faith brought the machete down on her neck dusting the now headless corpse. Xander picked up the legs of a broken chair and cut strips of the curtains, he quickly assembled two torches and used lighter fluid to soak them. With a flick of a lighter, he lit the two torches. A minute later, they heard another vampire coming down the hall.

"Rookie, you imbecile, you know Sunday says no fire. Dav stop him – What the hell do you think you're doing? What are you burning?" the feminine voice said stridently.

"What the fuck?" the female vampire said as she entered the kitchen to be met with Faith's machete turning her to dust.

The two moved into the main room of the downstairs, Faith taking out a vamp who was sitting in a recliner eyes closed with headphones on. Xander quickly moved to uncover windows as Faith stood guard holding both lit torches. The sound of Xander using a crowbar to pull wood off the windows was enough to draw more attention. Another vampire came running down the stairs. Xander turned from what he was doing and hit the vampire across the knees breaking the right one. As the vampire hit the ground, Xander's follow up swing hit it in the face Xander heard the satisfying crack as the blood sucker's jaw broke.

Faith handed Xander his torch back and quickly staked the vampire.

"Minions, can't a woman get laid around here?" they heard called down from upstairs. "Rookie, I smell smoke, I swear if you don't put that out, I will light you on fire myself."

"Would you stop that for a minute?" They heard the pissed off female vamp say. Xander assumed the voice they were hearing belonged to Sunday, the leader of this nest Faith nodded to him torch and machete at the ready. Xander set his torch in the fireplace and drew a super soaker from his backpack, quietly priming the pump to pressurize it. They heard a male voice complain, "But we weren't done yet? Last time I stopped too soon and that was a problem."

"Just go away!" - A muttered -"idiot frat boys" – stomping noises reached the top of the stairs, "Rookie!" She screamed from the top of the stairs.

As she came into view, she was belting a robe, she spied Faith

"What the fuck is this supposed to be? Did someone order a Tomb Raider snack pack?" The arrogant blonde sneered.

Not waiting for the vampire to choose their attack, Faith moved drawing her attention, "Yeah I beat the game, so I thought something more challenging was in order," Faith answered moving the torch into a low forward position.

Whatever the blonde was going to reply turned into a shriek as Xander blindsided her with Holy Water. Faith used that moment to strike taking the blonde's head.

"At least one more," Xander said as they heard-

"Sunday?" A large very naked jock came down the stairs

"Rookie, I'm gonna kick your ass for messing up my time with Sunday" the vampire said not even paying attention to his surroundings.

"What's this shit?" He said right before Faith staked him.

Faith was jazzed, she hadn't felt this good since they returned. They quickly searched the rest of the house staking two more vamps that seemed to be stoned. They then ransacked the house coming up with cash and electronics along with boxes and boxes of clothes.

Most of the electronics were out of date, but they did grab the most recent computers they could find, a stereo, and a couple of PlayStations and N64s and all the games and cds they could find. They loaded up the van and left. After stowing their loot at home, they made lunch. Faith was still jazzed, and didn't realize what she was doing until she plowed through her third sandwich and plate of chips.

That afternoon they headed to Rory's for work. Faith spent the afternoon feeling keyed up and antsy. Finally at dinner she recognized it as the H&H, _Well,_ she thought, _won't be the first time she had dealt with that._

After dinner, she and Xander ended up sparring in the basement, Aunt Jessica was ensconsed on the living room sofa watching a movie.

Xander was just bouncing through his techniques, once they started speeding up their techniques, Faith realized Xander was hitting harder too as she deflected off an elbow strike.

"X, you're pretty worked up tonight, you okay?"

Xander stopped for a moment, "Yeah, just hyper," he said kind of bouncing.

"Weird, I figured it was just me. I feel just like I used to after slaying," Xander looked at her for a minute and then blushed like the teenager he was.

"Yeah, I'm right there with you," Xander said.

"Well, I know how I used to take care of that and I don't think your mom would approve." Faith smirked.

"Not helping, Faith,"

"Oh well, won't be the first time that energy goes to waste." Faith said moving forward and throwing a punch. Moment over the two teenagers went back to sparring only ending after Aunt Jessica had come down stairs. She sat on the bottom step watching them for a few minutes.

"You two really are good," Aunt Jessica said when they stopped.

"Thanks Mom," Xander said.

"If you guys are done, do you want some pie?" Aunt Jessica asked.

"That sounds good," Faith answered. "We just need to do some cool down stretching and we'll be up."

"I'll get some tea started and see you in a few minutes."

After stretching the teens joined Aunt Jessica upstairs. They chatted over their pie mostly talking about Faith and Xander's upcoming belt test . Finished Xander thanked his mom for the he pie and excused himself to go shower.  
Faith got up and refilled her mug from the kettle, "Aunt Jessica, it is fun and Aunt Vivian was right, it has helped me deal with stuff left over from Boston, but also it feels like it's necessary to learn."  
"Is everything okay Honey?" Aunt Jessica said placing her hand on Faith's.  
"It's nothing immediate, it's just what you told me when I came here, this town has a surprisingly high violent crime rate."  
"Faith, that's something you shouldn't have to worry about."  
"But I do and it is hard to make sense of things."  
"Crime seldom makes sense Dear."  
"It's more that the types of crime don't make sense and the amount of violent accidents in this town really don't make sense. Animal attacks and gang attacks, except I've never heard anyone say they've seen packs of stray dogs or mountain lions and I haven't seen any gangs, trust me, where I grew up, I know how to spot gangs and barbecue forks? That seems a little out there. It's like there's two Sunnydales, the shinny side where's there's almost no unemployment and where the schools have some of the best test scores in the state, and the other side where the high school has much lower than normal completion rate, there's blocks of abandoned warehouses, and there are bizarre instances of violence." Faith saw Aunt Jessica about to interrupt but pressed on. "I've read H. G. Wells, it's like we are the Eloi just blithely ignoring the Morlochs." Faith wound down. "Sorry, I'm all keyed up and babbling, I probably sound like a paranoid."  
Aunt Jessica looked at her mug of tea, "No, you're not paranoid - Sunnydale is a good town to live in - I grew up here, my parents grew up here, my grandparents made this their home. The kinds of areas you normally have to live and work in to get the same deal that has the city paying my student loans are like your neighborhood in Boston or worse. That being said, yes it is dangerous at night. At the hospital we see and hear a lot of things that don't make any sense and you just learn to shrug it off. Some of it is typical hospital stuff from what I've seen online, but some of it is stuff that had no sane explanation." Jessica paused, "You can't let it control your life, but don't do stupid things. That's why Xander has a car and when you turn sixteen, you will also get a car. I'm not going to tell you to not hang out with your friends and be a teenager which includes going to clubs and movies and to the mall, but I'd like it if you travelled with more than just one other person and I don't want you wandering around town on foot after dark. I need to have this talk with Xander too, when you start dating, don't go parking someplace secluded, come back here where I know where you are."  
"Xander and I will be as safe as we can be." Then it hit Faith what she'd said - "I mean in general - we're not going parking or anything."  
Jessica looked at her for a moment and then broke out laughing.  
"That's all I can ask Faith," she said when she stopped laughing.

Sunday morning both Faith and Xander were up with the sun and out running, the avoided talking about it but Faith was still keyed up from the day before. Judging by the way Xander was acting and the way he kept adjusting himself, he was in the same boat. The feeling continued and Faith was actually starting to get a little concerned until they got to church. Walking into the sanctuary Faith started to calm and when the communion wafer was placed on her tongue it was like a cool wave washed over her, stilling her spirit. After church, they went out for brunch, when Aunt Jessica left for a second trip through the buffet line, Faith spoke quietly to Xander.  
"Did anything feel different about taking communion today?"  
"Yeah, it's like I've been bouncing with energy and aggressively horny since we left the frat house yesterday, when I took communion, it just slid away," Xander looked around, "I still feel energized, but not like I'm going to explode from the pressure."


	9. Chapter 9

For personal enjoyment not for profit, if you recognize it, I don't own it, just bending and folding it.

Chapter 9

That evening Xander was in the kitchen while his mom packed her lunch, she was starting back on night shift and was headed off to work shortly.

"Xander, there's something I wanted to talk to you about," she said as she was getting things out of the fridge. "You've got your license now, and that gives you a lot more freedom."

"Is this about what you and Faith talked about the other night?"

"Yes, you know that this town isn't the safest, I see a lot of things at the ER." His mom confirmed.

"We'll be careful Mom." Xander said giving her a hug.

"Mom, have you ever thought of leaving Sunnydale? When Faith and I were talking about this, I thought that it's not long until we're out of school and if we both go away to college that would leave you here alone."

"Xander, I've lived here my whole life." His mom responded.

"Yeah, but, well I'm not saying move away right now, I know you have to stay working here or pay back the grants you received for school, but have you thought about maybe buying someplace to retire to? I was watching this show about buying and selling property on TV."

"Xander, you have to know those shows are fake."

"I figure that the little Vietnamese dude with the bikini models is probably making more money these days off selling people his system than selling real estate."

His mother snorted and ruffled his hair.

"I'm not saying try to make millions, maybe just borrow money against the house here and buy someplace that you can either move to and work if things get worse here, or to have so you can retire there. Heck if you buy something that you can rent out in the meantime then you won't even be making the mortgage payment."

"It wouldn't be a bad retirement strategy, I'll think about it."

The next morning, Xander bounced down the stairs full of energy dropping his gym bag next to the door as his mom came in from work.

He gave her a quick hug good morning.

"Ready for the first cross country practice, honey?"

"Absolutely," he replied grabbing breakfast.

"So what are you guys up to today?"

"we were going to hit the mall with Jesse and Willow, go see a move and then grab dinner at the food court if that's okay?"

"That's fine, I want you two home by eight. Xander, be careful where you park the van."

"I will."

His mom got up and placed her coffee cup in the sink. Kissing them both on the top of the head she wished them luck and headed out the door.

The first cross country practice was good, Faith and Xander both were holding back from showing their true speed and strength, after they ran their first time trials, coach called Faith aside.

"Lehane, that was a great time. If you can keep up those times, I'll probably want to know if you want to run varsity this year or stay on JV?"

"I'll do what you need me to coach, but I'd like to have a strong season on JV, unless you need me on the varsity."

"That's the attitude I want Faith, just do your best and we'll talk later." Coach Hewitt said.

After practice, Faith and Xander headed back to the abandoned frat house they had cleared the day before. Another van full of things this time a turntable and milk crates of vinyl LPs

"Faith, even the ones we don't want, think of what they'll go for on eBay in a few years." Xander said as they were carrying the boxes up to the storage loft above the Harris garage.

"Alright Xander, but we're getting to the point where it's going to be difficult to hide all this stuff from your mom."

"Well, I was thinking that the watchers residence needs a stereo and video game system, we can tell Post that we hit garage sales and second hand stores. Not to mention the computers could be useful for research and school work with as much time as we will probably spend there in the next couple years."

When Faith and Xander stopped by the Miller's house, they noticed from over the fence a for sale sign in the yard that there were several people working inside the house. They relaxed when they was Mr. Post with the two women and one man and resolved to ask him about it later.

Sitting in the food court after watching Apollo 13, Xander overheard some of the cheerleaders.  
"Did you see Cordie's new car?" The brunette, Jaime, said. Sarcasm dripping from her tone.  
"If you can call a ten year old Celica new," Harmony sneered.  
"Well what do you expect considering they had to sell their condo in Hawaii."  
"Tell me about it, she's trying to make visiting her Grandmother in Monterey sound like the French Riviera."

"Hey at least you didn't get stuck going with her, Aura agreed to go on vacation with her thinking they were going to Hilo and ended up waking up to the sound of fishing boats for a week."

Xander and Faith shared a look, Xander hoped that this change would shift Cordelia's course enough to keep her from being caught up in Jasmine's plan.

Two days later, the question of how to explain the things they planned to stash at the Watcher's house got easier. Faith received a voicemail on her pager to call Mr. Post. After speaking to him, she told Xander they were stopping by his house after work.

"Faith, Xander, good afternoon. I'd like to apologize again for not believing you about the robot Ted Buchanan." Post said, Xander thought he hadn't apologized before but wasn't going to call him on it. "I also wanted to give you this," he said handing them each an enevelope. "A reward since Mr. Buchanan has no heirs and the Watchers are going to take ownership of the home and use it as a source of income to continue our fight."

Xander opened the envelope saw a stack of cash. A quick count came up with a thousand dollars

"Also, I'd like to step up both of your training regimes, Council seers still don't see anything indicating you will be called Miss Lehane, but even if you are not, with your facility with languages and the martial arts abilities I've observed in your studies, you may be able to apply for a position with the Council. To that end, I'd like to introduce you to the crossbow and discuss some basic techniques for defeating vampires." Mr. Post had a target set up in the back yard and a shooting position perhaps twenty yards away. There were two crossbows, a pistol grip bow and a larger rifle stock.

He picked up a small bottle, "Holy water although not immediately fatal burns vampires like strong acid, as will being touched by holy symbols like the cross." He held up a carved wooden stake, which Xander saw was quite a bit rougher made than the stakes that he and Faith had in the van. "The stake is of course traditional but if one is accurate, a wooden arrow through the heart will suffice quite well." He set the stake down and gestured to the bows. "I know that you have some proficiency in using a recurve bow which can be used more rapidly but a crossbow has the advantage of not tiring your muscles while you wait for the right shot and is easier to use in the cramped quarters that vampires are often found."

Faith quickly showed Mr. Post that she understood the basic techniques that he was showing her with a stake and even showed him some techniques adapted from the Danbong she practiced with in Hapkido. The bows proved simple, even discounting both Xander and Faith's history use in their prior timeline between the archery and rifle hunting they did with uncle Rory had them showing that they could hit the apple sized target consistently.

"Well Faith you certainly have a very good grasp of the basics. Vampires can also be decapitated with sword or axe, I myself am not excellent with a sword but I can provide you with some books.

Xander excused himself and went out to the van and grabbed their machete's wrapped in a towel. Faith seeing what he was bringing back turned to Mr. Post, "I'm sure that cutting out brush is not the same as fighting vampires, but I do have some experience using a blade." She held up heavy weight machete that Xander handed her.

"Yes well given what else you've shown me, I'm sure you will be able to adapt that to hunting the darkness. Vampires are not all you will fight if you are called and most things can't survive having their head cut off."

So, if you will let me know when you can be available for training, I will try to provide you with appropriate tools and resources." Mr. Post said, with a tone that Xander interpreted as meaning that he really hadn't thought beyond basic instructions, he thought that as much as Post was assigned to the Hellmouth, he wasn't really a field watcher more of an academic, kind of like Wesley was before he'd been run through the grinder.

Xander picked up the pistol crossbow, testing the draw he felt it was rather light. He looked at the bolts for it, well darts really. Faith was examining the larger crossbow and bolts, in the same critical fashion.  
"Xander, how hard would it be for you to make wooden tips for our fiberglass arrows?"  
Seeing as how he already had a few dozen, he knew this was for Post's benefit. "It shouldn't be too hard to make balanced tips with the lathe."  
Faith then looked to the watcher, "These aren't blessed weapons or anything are they?" At Post's head shake, she continued, "I'd like to use most of this money to purchase a couple of more modern crossbows. I've tried a couple that people have had out at the range that are a lot more powerful than these, but still just as simple to operate. I can get you the model numbers later." She started to hand the envelope back to Mr. Post who waived her off.  
"As I said it is my job to provide you with proper resources and since I have had to expend very little for training some new bows are certainly in the budget."  
"So, how long before we start going after the nightlife?" Faith asked putting the crossbow down.  
"Potentials do not normally take on slaying duties."  
"So you just let the bad guys run wild?" Xander asked disdainfully.  
"Well part of the slayer magic is that a slayer is often called where there is a need. When a slayer is active in one area and a hot spot develops elsewhere, the council seers will direct that the current slayer is needed."  
"How about modern weapons? Guns, stun guns, those new tasers I've seen on TV.?" Xander knew Faith knew the answer, both the real answer and the party line from the council, but he was just as interested in what Post would say.  
"Firearms are problematic, the won't normally kill a Vampire and they are noisy enough to attract a lot of attention which a slayer avoids.," he said. "As to stun guns, I don't know. I've read that magic that creates lightning kills vampires but I don't know about more mundane electricity."  
"Something to look into."  
They left shortly after that heading back to the house.  
"Well that was generous in the extreme, I mean the council gets a house free and clear worth $120-150,000 that they can rent or sell, and we get $1000 each." Xander snorted as they were driving down the road.  
"Well at least Post said he would pick up the crossbows I want out of his budget."  
True to his word a few days later Post came through, delivering them the crossbows that Faith had requested. Xander quickly fit wooden heads on a dozen quarrels for each of the bows.

They continued to cruise the Bronze taking out one or two vampires a week, near the end of August, they switched to stalking the local coffee house and the mall. Working as a team and attacking lone vampires, they didn't run into any trouble. At the mall, they found that there were very few of the service corridors that had video surveillance and yet there wasn't a lot of vampire activity. They weren't sure if it was due to it being summer or if it was due to the bright lights and abundance of mirrors.

Faith had Xander drive them around doing a search pattern from the Sunnydale Arms. Her first time in Sunnydale she had done a lot of dust and loot to cover her expenses. They hit several nests that she remembered that didn't have sewer access, and marked off several others to hit before the Anointed One arrived. They struck during the day, using holy water and weapons to make short work of the vampires.  
Their goal was to thin out the vampires so that the Master didn't have as many to draw on when the Annointed one came and to build up a war chest of cash for the future. Just as before, after taking the vampires in their layers, they felt aggressive and agitated but going to afternoon mass removed the compulsive feeling but still left them full of energy. One day close to the end of August, they were coming out of mass, Father Murray asked them if they had a few minutes to speak.  
Once the other parishioners had left, he led them back to his office he offered them coffee and after removing his rainment poured himself a cup.  
"Faith, Xander, it's not that I am unhappy to see two devout members of the congregation, but this is the fourth time this month I've seen the two of you at week day mass in addition to weekly mass with your mother."  
Neither teenager responded.  
"Is there some problem that you feel you need the Lord's guidance in solving?" He looked back and forth between them.

"Are the two of you in trouble?"

"No Father," they both answered firmly.

They sat silently for another moment until Faith sighed, "Father, it has to do with the inscription over the doors of the sanctuary, _praeceptum ne introeas malignissime,_ there are bad things in this town and coming to mass seems to lessen their effects."

Fr. Murray looked at them for a moment

"Interesting choice of words, things not people." Fr. Murray paused to sip his coffee.

"Does this have anything to do with the rarer texts that Mr. Post has?"

Faith nodded. But looked at him questioning.

"Xander's mother mentioned you being tutored in Latin. I have spoken to Mr. Post upon occasion. Faith, do you have a calling?"

"Potentially," Faith answered.

"My dear, I can only pray that your work in this calling can remains academic."

"Thank you," Faith said. Deciding to stop speaking around the subject, and remembering hearing that Fr. Murray and Fr. Garcia had assisted poorer members of the community flee before the fall of Sunnydale, she asked "Fr. Murray, what is the Church's opinion of the Council?"

The priest steepled his fingers tapping his chin.

"In order to be assigned to this Parish, knowledge of the older rites that are largely ignored today is required. I myself have not seen directly the things that the council fights, I'm told my faith acts as a shield that is repellent to much of the darkness. That being said, I have seen things that are not human and heard of people who had died being seen around town. Has Mr. Post led you against creatures of the night?"

"No, so far his lessons have just been academic," Faith answered, "but if you go to the Bronze or the coffee house at the college long enough you will see them if you know what to look for."

"When I first came here, Mr. Post's predecessor gave me a letter to send to Rome. In response I received a briefing on the council from my superiors." Fr. Murray paused and drank his coffee. "The Church sees the Watchers as one of several organizations combating evil in the world. In the present day, the Church does not have the resources we once did. There are very few bellatorum left. We may not always agree with the Council's actions, but they do fight the darkness. We do not have a close association, but there is contact. I take it from the way you answered that question that you have already fought the forces of evil?"

Faith and Xander made eye contact with each other and both nodded.

"I'm sorry that you have taken this task so young," Father Murray looked at them. "I was a chaplain in the army for eight years. In war, and this is a war, there are times that our actions are not always clear cut. You have my assurance that if you need to discuss anything either in confession or just needing counsel that you can be open with, I will be here."

"Does your aunt know?"

"No, I mean, we've talked about the dangers of this town, but nothing about the fight against evil. I will figure out a way tell her if I am called but until then -" Faith's voice trailed off.

"It is a difficult thing," Fr Murray finished for her. "Might I suggest that you tell her now rather than later, many of the people I see at the hospital seem to have more of an idea of what goes on here than the general public."

Faith sat pensively for a moment, "I figured it would be easier once I was called, it is hard to refute superhuman strength and agility."

"I would be happy to assist, I know the Watchers prefer to keep complete secrecy, but I as your family priest would be willing to try to ease the conversation."

"That may be a good idea," Xander offered.

"I'll think about it," Faith shrugged. Father Murray let it drop.

"If I can be of service, holy water, blessings, exorcism, anything I or Fr. Garcia can offer please ask."

"If you can place a host in the mouth of any bodies you pray over, that may prevent a vampire from rising," Faith offered.

Fr. Murray nodded. He stood and came around his desk first he first placed a hand on Faith's head and prayed over her for a moment, then repeated the action with Xander.

"Be safe," he said dismissing them.


	10. Chapter 10

For personal enjoyment not for profit, if you recognize it, I don't own it, just bending and folding it.

Chapter 10

Shortly after school started, they were at the Bronze with Willow and Jesse when Xander recognized the blond dancing with Chad, he leaned in to Faith and whispered, "The RT we've been waiting for is dancing with Chad."

"Keep an eye on him while I check for any others," Faith whispered back.

Xander nodded as Faith moved away quickly to see if Darla had any minions with her,

"Willow," he whispered as he leaned in close to Willow's ear, "Faith thinks the gal dancing with Chad is a vamp. She's checking for others. If she's right, we need to get him away from her."

Faith came back down the stairs and shook her head right as the song ended and they saw Darla lead Chad towards the door. Faith followed right behind to see which way they went.

Xander slipped his stake into his right hand and settled a pair of brass knuckles onto the left still in his pocket. He watched Jesse slip on a pair of gloves and empty a small bottle of holy water into his palms.

Willow was holding a crystal and muttering under her breath.

As they exited Faith looked at them and then headed towards the parking lot without a word. They approached Chad's jeep and saw the blond with their friend.

"Hey Chad, Are you taking off, you were supposed to give Jesse and me a ride home?" Faith asked.

"Sorry Honey," Darla said her voice dripping sugar, "Chad has other plans."

Chad just looked numbly on.

"Chad –", Xander said moving next to their teammate and drawing Darla's attention

"Why don't you run along –" Darla started. At the same time Faith hit her in the side of the face with holy water causing her to flinch back crying out in pain as she was revealed. Unlike the vamps Faith had recently encountered this didn't stop Darla from swinging at Faith knocking her into the car parked next to them. Xander didn't hear what Willow said, but the crystal she held emitted light that made Darla scream. Xander didn't stop to think, he lunged forward and hit her with the brass knuckles to turn her so he could follow through with his stake and dust her. The last thing he saw before she dusted was her yellow eyes go wide.

Xander looked around and not seeing any more vampires, slipped the brass knuckles off while holding the stake as inconspicuously as possible. The light that willow conjured went out.

"What are you kids doing out here, who screamed?" the bouncer yelled at them from the end of the lot by the door.

"Sorry Sir," Jesse replied. "We were just horsing around."

"Are you girls okay?" he said shining his flashlight at Faith and Willow.

"Yes Sir," they both said.

"Okay, if you kids aren't going to be in the club, you need to leave." He said going back to the door.

"Chad, are you okay?" Faith asked.

"What happened to Darla?" Chad asked, seeming to come out of his daze.

Willow and Jesse just looked at each other.

"I think she had to take off," Xander supplied.

"Okay, I'll see you guys at practice tomorrow." He said patting his jeans to find his keys.

"You want me to drive you home?" Faith asked. "You don't look so hot."

"Yeah, that would be nice, I don't know what's up, but I'm fuzzy feeling." Chad said handing Faith his keys.

After dropping Chad and his car off, the four of them were in the van driving back to the Harris household.

"Willow," Faith asked, "What was that with the light?"

"A spell I found that I thought would be helpful, it catches the first rays of morning sunlight."

"That was cool," Jesse praised her.

"Well, it's actually designed to be a light source for longer at lower brightness, but you can will how quickly you want the sunlight to come out," Willow explained. "But now I have to get up before dawn on a clear Sunday to charge another crystal."

"Thanks Willow," Faith said. "I was hoping that the four of us showing up, would cause the vampire to leave."

Willow got a stern look on her face, "Don't lie, I know you and Xander have been going after them from the number of times I call your house and have to buzz one of your pagers, I know you are out hunting."

Faith and Xander were quiet as they pulled into the drive way of the Harris house causing the two motion sensor flood lights to illuminate the area between the car and the door.

The group filed in to the house. They were all standing in the kitchen, Willow had a stern look on her face.

Faith took her hand, "Willow, I've had nightmares about-about friends dying ever since Mr. Post told me about the Slayer, he seems to feel that the standard policy of just sitting back and observing is good enough. But what if one of those leeches went after you guys or Aunt Jessica? I can't just sit back and watch even if I'm not the Slayer."

"I get that, but why not include us?" Jesse asked.

"Well we really only started after Xander got his license, and, well, we didn't want to scare you."

"You told me about Vampires, you think I'm not already scared?" Willow said, angrily. Xander went to place a comforting hand on her shoulder but she shrugged him off. "You're this 'potential', and now it comes out that you and Xander are actively hunting them?"

"We've been going after easy targets, the ones that cruise the Bronze and the coffee house at the college. These things are coming to the places that we hang out and killing people we know, so yeah we're taking them out to make the places we go safer," Faith answered standing up for herself. "So far tonight was the biggest challenge we've faced, and that's more because we usually confront them where they have less room to maneuver. Does that mean that we should have left that Vamp to get Chad?"

"No, of course not," Willow snapped back. "You shouldn't have kept us in the dark!"

Xander refused to be shaken off this time, he took Willow's hand, "Will, I'm sorry, I should have told you."

"You're darn right Mister," His girlfriend said angrily.

"We would have, but this isn't a game, it's not like Shadowrun, We're not putting together a party to do a Run. Everybody isn't born and raised to fight. This is the real world."

"Maybe we should be," Jesse said taking part in the conversation for the first time. "You said it, these blood suckers are coming to the places we and our friends hang out. If we want to survive high school, maybe we do need to fight."

"Jesse's right," Willow said. "But you're right too, it's not something you can just ask people. We're not going to have a booth at club day signing people up to fight demons and the undead – but that's what you're doing – and that's what we're doing. Making ourselves stronger, studying martial arts, learning magic, and thinning out the ranks of the enemy." Willow wrapped an arm around Xander, and held her other arm out for Jesse who came closer and beckoned Faith. "The three of us have been friends since kindergarten and Faith, you fit right in with us. It's not your fault there are bad things and ignoring them isn't going to stop them from happening.

"No, but part of it is my doing, ever since I heard the name Sunnydale, I had this feeling that I need to be better, be stronger, be ready," Faith said quietly. "I thought it was about a fresh start and getting away from the road things were on with my Mom, doing better in school, getting into college, but," she trailed off.

"Do you think it's those Slayer dreams that you've read about?" Willow asked.

"Maybe," Faith replied, "Probably – Who knows."

Willow moved her arm from around Jesse and Xander's waist and wrapped Faith in a hug, "Whatever brought it on, your dreams and hunches may have been pushing us towards this but you're not the reason this town is dangerous and we're all going to get through this."

Shortly after that, Xander drove Jesse and Willow home. He dropped off Jesse first and after waiting to make sure that he got inside the house, drove to Willow's as was becoming more and more common the only light on was the porch light. Willow's parents were gone to a conference. Shortly they were in the living room cuddled upon the couch. Small things were said but it was apparent that the evening had effected Willow strongly, their kisses turned more passionate and soon hands were roaming under shirts, Xander felt the slightly roughness of the lace of Willow's bra scratching against his chest as his hands rested at the small of her back playing with the edge of her jeans. This wonderful feeling was interrupted by his pager going off. The teens disentangled themselves and Xander looked at the message

"My mom."

Willow just handed him the phone.

"Xander," his mom said without waiting for him to say anything when he called the hospital, "Didn't you say you would be home at midnight?"

"Yes Ma'am," he replied.

"Well, that a half hour ago."

"Thanks Mom, I'll be home soon."

"Love you kiddo, see you in the morning." she said hanging up.

Xander straightened his clothing seeing that Willow had already done the same.

"So do you want a ride to Andrew's tomorrow?"

"That'd be nice."

They kissed a few more times until Willow let Xander out the door with a wave good night.

The next day when they were driving back from Andew's, Faith brought up Andrew's brother.

"So I asked Willow to see if she felt any build up magical energy at Andrew's," Faith told him. "I reminded her what he said last summer about his brother said last summer and she said she couldn't sense anything."

"Good to know," Xander said, eyes on the road.

"We'll keep an eye on him," Faith assured Xander.

"Thank you."

The fall semester went by quickly, with Jesse and Willow on board with fighting Vampires, and the fact that they were back in school, they didn't go after any more nests and kept almost all of their hunting to weekend. As a group, they all took the Hapkido classes they were taking very seriously and the other two joined them in sparring and working on techniques with stakes outside class. Jesse and Willow both took the things that Xander and Faith showed them seriously. They didn't openly read the books that Mr. Post had, but Xander and Faith borrower books form the watcher's library and let the others read them. The second time that Willow used her sunlight crystal, they were able to see that it actually caused burns on the vampire like sunlight. They talked about how it could be used if they ever needed to go after a nest.

Willow came up with a weapon that although harder to conceal than a straight stake, turned out to work rather well, a short tonfa. They were able to order padded ones for sparring from a martial arts magazine and order wood ones that Xander then sharpened down the end of. The first time Faith blocked a kick from a vampire with one she was sold for life and hugged Willow after the vampire was dust.

In October, Xander's mom told him that his idea about buying another property turned out to be a good one. She purchased a house and a duplex on one lot in Davis near the university. Property values in the Central valley were recovering more slowly from the recession than Sunnydale had. She told Xander that she figured if he or Faith went to Davis they could live in one of the two smaller units and if she decided to move there, she could either live in one of the smaller unit or the larger house, but with the university medical center, it was almost guaranteed she could find a job.

Xander and Faith Saw Mr. Post in the Art Gallery that would be Joyce Summers' several times in October shortly before it was listed for sale.

It wasn't long after that that Post asked Faith to meet at his house. Xander as usual tagged along

"Faith, I need to tell you that I am going to be going back to England at the end of the Term and in the new year my replacement, Mr. Giles, will be here to take over. I also need to tell you that this is ahead of schedule and happening because Mr. Giles has been assigned to the current Slayer after her last watcher was killed in the line of duty."

"The slayer's coming here?" Faith asked. "You said the slayer normally is called when something very bad is going to happen if they don't stop it."

"Well, yes, I'm told a council seer said she needed to be here," he stopped and looked at her and then made eye contact with Xander for the first time in the conversation. "I've become very fond of the both of you and of your friend Willow, do take care of yourselves. Perchance I'll see you in Watcher's training in a few years."

"What is the name of the slayer?" Faith asked.

"Buffy Summers."


	11. Chapter 11

For personal enjoyment not for profit, if you recognize it, I don't own it, just bending and folding it.

Chapter 11

One of the clients they had cultivated doing yard work and odd jobs were the Peters, the owners of 1630 Revello Dr. when they saw the for sale sign go up at the beginning of November, Faith and Xander stopped by on their way home from practice to ask if there was anything they could do.

"Mr. Peters," Xander said to the man in his seventies. "We haven't been doing yard jobs while we are doing cross country, but if there's anything you need, were' happy to help."

"Thank you Xander, there are some things that our realtor said we need to keep up and offered to hire someone to do, but we know you kids and Mrs. Peters likes your cousin so we'd like it if you could do the work for us."

This added one more thing to the schedule but did mean that Faith met Mrs. Summers when she was there for the property inspection and when the Peters sang her praises hired her and Xander to do some general yard work and help out when they moved in. Which was why on the first Saturday of Christmas break, Xander and Faith were sitting on the front steps of the soon to be Summers abode, with Joyce's realtor and her Son and Nephew, who were both in college, when Joyce Summers pulled up in a U-haul with her Jeep on a dolly trailer behind.

The realtor had brought donuts, coffee, and a house warming gift of a doormat that said "Bless this house and all those who enter."

Xander was caught flat footed when a twelve year old Dawn climbed out of the cab of the truck whining to her mother.

"I can't believe how small this stupid town is. I mean why couldn't I have stayed in LA with my friends, I'm not the one that got kicked out of school." She said stomping towards the house.

Xander and Faith had talked back and forth, unable to agree on whether the monks inserting Dawn into the Summers' family would change the past or if she wouldn't show up until 2000. They hadn't been able to agree on which way it would be.

Xander quickly recovered when confronted with a whining preteen instead of the woman he had known.

"I'm Dawn, who are you two?" she asked imperiously when she came to stop in front of the porch. Xander didn't say anything

"I'm Faith and this is my cousin Xander, your mom hired us to help you guys move in."

"Well you don't look like movers I've seen before," she said with certainty. "You don't look strong enough." She turned to the two older boys, "You two look more like movers."

The Dave's as they had introduced themselves made non-committal noises.

"Oh, we're stronger than we look," Faith said smiling at the child. She set her cup down on the porch rail. But why don't we go find out what your Mom wants us to do first. The two teenagers and the realtor Mrs. Dobson walked down out to the truck where Mrs. Summers was having a quiet but intense conversation with Buffy who looked sulky.

Joyce saw them approaching and said something emphatically to Buffy before turning to them.

"Good morning Joan, Faith," she said and looked at Xander, "you must be Xander, Mrs Peters had good things to say about you." She said extending her hand to Xander who took it. "Dave and Dave, thank you for driving down and helping us load things yesterday."

"This is my oldest Buffy, and you met Dawn."

"Pleasure to meet you and your daughters Ma'am," Xander said.

"If you have your keys Mrs. Summers, Xander and I can get you the car off the trailer," Faith offered. "We've done it before at our uncle's garage."

"Thank you Faith," Joyce said with relief, I had to get one of the people from the rental office to help me with it last night." She handed her keys to Faith who with Xander made quick work of getting the jeep free of the trailer and then unhooking the trailer from the rental truck. While they were unhooking the SUV, Xander, heard Joyce talking to Mrs. Dobson.

"Thank you for helping

After being told which rooms were each of the girls, the kids quickly unloaded the things in the jeep setting boxes and luggage in closets the next few hours would have been much worse if it was if they hadn't had three abnormally strong teenagers and the two college students. Dawn was somewhat helpful but after the first hour, she was just cranky.

Xander was sure the Dave's noticed that Buffy was much stronger than she appeared but they said nothing.

Mrs. Dobson, drove Joyce and Dawn to go pick up lunch getting Dawn out of their hair as they unloaded the last of the furniture. Faith was upstairs talking with Buffy, Xander could hear them moving around and voices but couldn't hear what they were saying over the stereo they had hooked up.

"You guys are pretty good at this," Dave, Joan's nephew, observed. "Aunt Joan pulls us in to do this fairly often in the summer, there are times we could use the extra hand if you and your cousin are interested."

"We're pretty busy in the Summer, but we might be able to help."

"Aunt Joan pays pretty well," Dave said.

Xander dug out a small notebook he carried in his pocket and scribbled his name, pager number, and email address on one of the paper and then ripped it out handing it to Dave.

"Cool, if Aunt Joan asks us to find more people we'll probably call you. The last one of Dave's Frat buddies that showed up to help was hung over as hell and unpleasant."

The conversation would have continued, but the ladies returned with lunch.

Over lunch, Joan was telling Joyce and the girls about the town.

"Solvang has wooden shoes, we have left over customs that are based superstitious."

Faith piped up, "My Latin tutor says it is likely because of the varied groups that settled the area, Native tribes, Spanish, Russian, Welsh, And Scandinavian."

Joyce's eyebrows rose when she mentioned Latin, apparently the sporty young woman wearing a school athletic team t-shirt didn't strike her as a language scholar.

"I hadn't heard that, but it makes sense," Mrs Dobson said. "the main one is you won't see many welcome mats. It's almost a Feng Shui thing, if you unthinkingly invite anyone into your home you are inviting bad luck into your home."

"It's true, when I moved here one of Aunt Jessica's friends looked at me oddly when I invited them in," Faith offered.

One of the Dave's nodded in agreement.

"That's going to take some getting used to," Joyce said.

"It's just one of the quirks of Sunnydale," Joan said patting her hand.

Changing the subject, Joyce asked Faith and Xander, "So what grade are you two in?"

"Sophomores, Mrs. Summers," Xander replied.

"That's great, Buffy, your first day here and you've already met two of your classmates."

"yeah great, Mom," Buffy said unenthusiastically.

As they finished up lunch Joyce looked around. She then turned to the Daves and Faith and Xander, "Thank you four, I'm surprised we got everything off the truck so quickly. Buffy, Dawn, are there any of the heavier pieces that you want help moving before I let these nice people get on about the rest of their day?"

Both of her daughters shook their heads no.

Joyce reached for her purse and handed each of the helpers money. "Well then, again thank you for your hard work this morning. Now it's time for us to do all the little details to make this home livable."

"You're welcome," Faith answered then turned to Buffy. "Since we're going to be in class together, do you want to get together, we can show you around the mall and the other hang outs around town over break?"

"I guess," Buffy said.

"Do you want to get together Monday?"

Before Buffy could answer, her mom interjected, "That would be great Buffy, after a couple of days of unpacking you can use the break."

"How's 10:30 Monday sound, we'll go hit the mall and watch the crazy Christmas shoppers."

"Okay I guess," Buffy said sounding unenthusiastic.

Since they had keys to the watcher's house, Sunday afternoon saw Faith and Xander moving some additional electronics into the house so it would be there when Mr. Giles arrived.

Monday morning, They went by Buffy's house she let them in and excused herself to finish getting ready. The sat at the kitchen counter for a few minutes until Buffy returned.

"Where's your mom and sister?" Faith asked.

"Mom's at the gallery, My Dad picked up Dawn this morning, she's spending most of Christmas break with him," Buffy explained.

"So it's just me and Mom," Buffy said with a sigh. "Sorry if I sounded dramatic on Saturday, Dawn thinks this is all my fault."

"Sorry, Family can be a pain," Faith offered.

"Yeah, that about says it," Buffy said.

They headed out the door.

"Hope you don't mind, Xander's girlfriend and our friend Jesse wanted to join us." Faith said as they climbed into the van.

"Nah, It's cool."

Their first stop was to pick up Willow, who bounced into the van in a pair of tight jeans and tight thermal top, giving Xander a kiss on the cheek before landing in the passenger seat. She turned and held out her hand to Buffy, "Hi, I'm Willow."

"Hi I'm the new girl, Buffy," she said with a small smile.

"Welcome to Sunnydale."

Shortly they were at the mall where they met up with Jesse. When he introduced himself, Buffy did a double take.

"Sorry I thought –"

"Yeah Jesse, not Jessica, that's okay, I can be just one of the girls, talk about make up play dress up at the next slumber party. I'll be on Faith's team during the pillow fight, you can have Willow."

"Not happening," Willow said with a laugh.

The five teens had a fun morning at the mall mostly browsing and chatting. When the three girls made turn into Victoria Secret, the boys said they be across the way at Sam Goody.

After their foray into the land of lace, They met the boys at the record store. Xander watched as Buffy was approached by Harmony, he heard the cheerleader say, "Hi I'm Harmony, you must be new in town."

"I'm Buffy, yeah, we just moved here."

"Well I just wanted to let you know that you look like somebody who is an A-lister and hanging out with Harris and Lehane's pack won't do you a lot of favors socially."

"Pack?" Buffy asked.

"They're always together." Xander thought as opposed to the gaggle of cheerleaders that Harmony wandered around with. He could see Aura and two others over by the listening stations.

"I won't say that they're trouble, but don't get on their bad side and if you don't choose your friends carefully you'll never rise above them." She tossed her hair, "Anyway, I'll see you around."

Faith walked up as Buffy stood there with a perplexed look on her face, "Yeah Harmony has that effect on people."

"I'm not sure, but I think she was trying to tell me hanging with you guys was dangerous or social suicide."

"Well Harmony doesn't like me much and well one of her ex boyfriends – let's not talk about this in the middle of a store. Why don't we grab some lunch, the food court is a zoo, so I was thinking Chinese buffet," Faith said.

"Buffet sounds good."

Once they made their way to the restaurant, they took a table in the corner. Buffy sat on the end.

"You guys seem nice enough," Buffy started, "but Harmony kind of said your get into trouble and well – we moved here because – my mom would freak." Buffy said flustered.

"Hey, we're not some gang or something, Harmony and I had a problem last year." Faith started to explain. "Okay back story, because you'll probably hear this the first week of school. I've told you Xander is my cousin, I live with him and my aunt Jessica. I live with them because my mom is in Prison. Long story short, she had some run ins with the cops. Mostly just public intoxication but her taste in men tended towards the thug so there were a couple of more serious situations. One of her last boyfriends had a buddy that thought I was old enough to mess with. I broke his leg, there was screaming and fighting between Mom's guy and his friend, Mom was either drunk or stoned to the gills, she got into the act. The cops showed up, they were paying attention to the two guys beating on each other and not my mom. Mom took a swing with a lamp, and connected with one of the cops. Now she's serving five to seven in Massachusetts women's center and I'm here living with Aunt Jessica and Xander. This is a small town, it came out last year among other things that I had been the victim in a sexual assault charge. One of the football player's thought that would make me an easy target, I guess he didn't hear about the part where I used an aluminum bat on the guy, and made some comments in the locker room, which may or may not have caused Xander and Jesse to teach him the error or his ways. Dipshit happened to be somebody that Harmony wanted to date. So I'm on her shit list, gotta love that logic."

"So we don't get into trouble, in fact we're all on the honor roll," Willow said. She pointed to Jesse's Letterman jacket. "The four of us are on the cross country team."

"Just small town BS," Jesse said.

"Great, I thought Hemery was bad for gossip. Let me get this out of the way because otherwise it's going to be awkward and I'll either be dancing around things or have to explain when somebody brings it up at school. I had some problems in school last year. There was a big fight at prom that ended up with the gym burning down. I ran off for a couple of days with the guy I was dating. When I god back, the police were trying to pin the whole thing on me and my parents ended up sending me to get counseling." She took a breath, "They didn't catch who did it, but evidence came out showing I wasn't the one that did it and my therapist says I was just acting out from fear. But by that time the problems my Mom and Dad were having had blown up and now they're divorced. Even though I was cleared of charges, the school didn't want to let me back in claiming zero tolerance. So when mom had the opportunity to buy the gallery here we moved."

After lunch, they dropped Jesse off at home, Buffy said she had more unpacking to do and Faith offered to help. Xander and Willow begged off as Willow was headed out of town with her parents that evening.

Back at the Summers' house, the girls were in Buffy's room as Buffy unpacked boxes, Faith helping and admiring Buffy's shoes.

"What size are you?" Buffy asked

"8 most of the time." Faith answered.

"Well, I'll have to peruse your closet then, I might not be against the occasional exchange program."

"Cool."

Faith started unpacking Buffy's hope chest and as she lifted the sweaters out to put in the closet she uncovered a stake and a dagger fell out of one of the folded up sweaters.

Buffy brushed her aside to pick up the weapons, "I'm sorry, props for a Halloween costume. I thought those were in another box."

Faith stood back and crossed her arms, then thought better of it, if Buffy reacted badly she wanted her hands free. "Buffy, I know those aren't props." She paused. "I know you're the slayer."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Buffy said eyes wide, she still had the stake in her hand.

Faith held up her hands, "Buffy could you put the stake down?"

Buffy looked at her, eyes afraid, then looked at the stake in her hand. She set it back in the chest and closed the lid. "Who the fuck are you and what the hell are you talking about?" she demanded.

"Look, I figured Mr. Giles would introduce us once school started, but then Mrs. Dobson called and when your mom said your name I knew it had to be you." She said holding her hands out in front of her in a calming manner. "I'm a potential, the watcher that was stationed here until the beginning of the month told me your name before he left."

"So you're some wannabe, screw that, were you and your friends stalking me, probably thinking you were so cool, knowing my secrets? I even told you some of what happened. Were you sick freaks laughing at me while I told you that? You can keep the whole slayer thing. Tell Giles or whatever his name is that I'm done, you can take over."

"Xander knows about you being the slayer because I told him last night. The others don't, they know I'm a potential and a bit about what's out there, but mostly because I want them to be safe and safe in this town doesn't come easy."

"Wanna be, hell no," Faith said. "Might get hosed by fate and end up being, maybe, I hope to hell not. Buffy, you got the short end of the stick – hell, I think the slayer package should come with an automatic winning lottery number to compensate – but from what I've read, even if you wanted to stop, that's not how it works. One Girl, in the world empowered with mystic mojo and eleven secret herbs and spices, and the fight doesn't end."

"Yeah, I know, the fight doesn't end until it ends me, and then somebody other poor girl, maybe you – at least you seem to know what the hell is going on – maybe some unlucky girl like me who's biggest worry is whether her dad is going to notice the hickey on her neck or if she should sleep with her boyfriend or not, has to pick up the stake and keep fighting. Screw that, I'm done, I'm just going to go to school and graduate. The fight will have to go on without me."

"Problem with that is if I read the journals right, as far as the things in the dark go, you're the fastest gunslinger around and they're going to come after you and on top of that, if you moved here there's a fairly good chance that some nasty is going to show up. Either fate moved you here to counter it, or because you're here it will come after you."

Buffy sat down on the bed and hugged her pillow, "I just thought coming here would be different, I don't want to get in trouble. I mean, when Mrs. Dobson was talking about not inviting people in I almost threw up."

"Unfortunately, yeah vampires are a thing here, people don't talk about it, they talk about animal attacks, and gangs with BBQ forks. People don't want to know," Faith said.

"So what is the story with you?"

"Well like I told you earlier, I moved here to live with my aunt. Then almost a year ago, the school librarian gives me the whole, 'The world is older than we know' speech. I was already taking Hapkido and working out, but I've upped the intensity and started studying Latin and Greek so I know what I'm up against."

"Why do I feel like I was dropped in the deep end?"

"Mr. Post didn't say a lot, but it sounds like you were. He told me that I was found very late for a potential, so if I was found late, being found after you were called happens incredibly rarely." Faith wasn't going to say that from her reading of the journals in the alternate future, there were periods of time that weren't accounted for meaning there had to be slayers that weren't found in the past.

"So you've been doing the classroom work. Let me tell you it sucks being out there."

"Buffy, the last watcher who was here, Mr. Post said that potentials don't go out into the field but really, like I said, I saw my first vampire at the Bronze, the fifteen and up club I told you about. Before coming here, there was an old woman in my apartment building, she was a witch, she told me about the bad stuff out there. There's a magic store here in town that isn't just new age junk. It seemed that Mr. Post would object so Xander and I didn't tell him, we've staked almost two dozen vampires in the last year."

"See, you can do this, you don't need me," Buffy said.

"We've been able to do it, because we take them when they aren't expecting it, when they come to our places, we have a good idea of where there may be more but we aren't strong enough to go after them, only take them out when they come out alone to hunt, or when we can corner them and take them in daylight. We work together, we use weapons, and we catch them off guard. There has only been one of them that matched up to the way the watcher's books describe as master vampires, and I only think that because she had her victim hypnotized. I think we got her because she was focused on her victim. The rest have been strong and fast, but thankfully dumb. I don't see that continuing, if you're here it probably means something bigger is coming." Faith watched Buffy take in what she was saying.

"Okay so why don't we call Mr. Giles and get him to figure out why I'm here."

"Mr. Giles isn't here yet, he doesn't arrive until after Christmas."

"Well then I guess we're in a holding pattern until then."

"Unless you want to start training. I'd like the opportunity to spar with somebody who is stronger and faster than normal that won't actually tear my throat out if they get the upper hand."

"Maybe, look, this is all a bit much to take in, I'll call you in a day or two, after Christmas, to talk," Buffy said getting up.

"Okay, I'll talk to you then," Faith said following her to the front door she left and headed back to the Harris household.

Faith jogged to the Harris household taking a short cut through the Drier's yard rather than going around the long block and hopped the back wall. She saw Xander's van in the drive so she figured he was home from dropping off Willow. She unlocked the back door and went in. She could hear the TV on in the living room and grabbing a glass of water, she walked in to join her cousin. And stopped in the doorway when she saw a topless Willow sitting straddling Xander making out with his hands on her jean clad ass.

"Sorry," She said ducking back into the kitchen.

She heard Willow make a strangled noise and then heard scrabbling for clothing.

"Hi Faith," she heard a few moments later, she walked in to see both Xander and Willow red-faced but sitting clothed on the couch.

"Hey guys, Sorry Willow, I figure Xander would have already dropped you off."

"It's okay, we just weren't expecting you so soon," Willow said with a wave of her hand as she tucked herself under Xander's arm.

"So how was hanging out with Buffy?" Xander asked.

"Fun, girl has a wicked shoe addiction though."

"there are worse things."

"Yeah, like nearly silent cousins who walk in unannounced," Xander griped.

"Hey, not my fault you weren't paying attention, would you prefer it was your mom walking in?"

"Yeah, not really," Xander said as Willow buried her face in his chest.


	12. Chapter 12

For personal enjoyment not for profit, if you recognize it, I don't own it, just bending and folding it.

Chapter 12

"So, did you get a chance to talk to her about, you know?" Xander asked when he returned from dropping Willow off.  
"Yeah, not the smoothest thing I've ever done. Don't startle a slayer who has a stake in her hand."  
Xander raised an eyebrow  
"I don't think she was going to stake me, but still not on the recommended list of things to do, she basically kicked me out and said she'd talk to me in a few days."

That call came the day after Christmas, Xander answered the phone and with a quick "Hi Buffy," handed it to Faith.

"Faith, look, I'm sorry I freaked out the other day, can you get together and talk?"

"Sure," Faith answered, "We're pretty much free this week, do you want to come over here?"

ha

"Okay see you in a half an hour."

A half hour later, the bell rang and Aunt Jessica let Buffy in, Faith had just reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Aunt Jessica, this is Buffy Summers, she's the girl whose family we were hired to help move in last weekend. She's a sophomore too. Buffy, this is my Aunt Jessica."

"Jessica Lavelle," Aunt Jessica said holding her hand out to be shaken. "It's a pleasure to meet you Buffy," Faith was sure that Buffy noticed the lack of invitation and the fact that Aunt Jessica's hand didn't cross the threshold.

Buffy stepped in and took Aunt Jessica's hand, "It's a pleasure to meet you Mrs. Lavelle."

"So how are you liking out little town?" Aunt Jessica said as she went back into the kitchen where she prepping stew ingredients to go in the crock pot.

"So far so good, we really just got here in time to have Christmas dinner and other than meeting up with Faith and Xander, I've been unpacking and helping Mom get the gallery ready to re-open."

"Oh, did your mother buy the Marks' Gallery on main? I'd heard they were retiring but hadn't heard what was going in that space."

"Yeah, Mom managed a gallery in Hermosa Beach before we came here, and well – divorce settlement – fresh start. Of course Mom's going for more tribal art and local artisan than Thomas Kinkade which seems to be what the last owner was mainly into so yeah, new different" – Buffy trailed off.

"It sounds like a lovely addition to downtown," Aunt Jessica said patting her hand.

Aunt Jessica went back to putting together the stew she'd been making, "Please ask your mother to call me, we'd love to have you over for dinner."

"I'll let her know to call you," Buffy answered.

Shortly the stew was in the crock pot.

"Mom, I'll get the dishes," Xander offered.

"Thank you Xander. Well, I'm off to bed, night shift," she explained to Buffy. "Buffy it was a pleasure to meet you." Aunt Jessica gave Xander and Faith a one armed hug and a kiss on the forehead before going upstairs. At the same time Faith heard her settle down, buffy stopped talking about the clothes she got for Christmas. She turned to Xander who was just finishing putting things in the dishwasher.

"So Faith told me you know about me."

Xander looked from one girl to the other, "If you mean about the Slayer thing, she told me your name when she learned it from Mr. Post, the Watcher that was here. Hey, rather than have this conversation here, why don't we go over to the Watcher's house to talk?"

"I thought you said the watcher wasn't here yet?" Buffy said turning to Faith.

"He's not, but like helping the Peters and helping you mom move, we do yard work and house work for people – mostly over the summer – technically we're house sitting until the next employee of the London Museum arrives on research sabbatical." Faith answered. "Mr. Giles arrives tomorrow. So that sounds like a good idea."

The three filed out and climbed into Xander's van, in a few minutes they were in at the Watcher's house, Faith let them in and got everybody drinks.

"So, Faith tells me you've staked a few vampires."

"A few, it's hard not to when one of them decides your cousin is lunch the first time you go out to a dance after a football game."

"You didn't tell me that," Buffy said turning to Faith.

"Like I said," Faith answered, "Mr. Post expected that I wouldn't involve myself in things unless I was called, the problem was, I already knew a little about them from my neighbor in Boston and had already used this to stake one that attacked me." She said pulling her key chain out of her pocket and tossing it to Buffy who noticed it was a wooden kubotan with a pointed although not sharpened end.

"you staked a vampire with this?"

"Well, my cross stopped him from biting me initially, but he was still coming at me." Faith answered, spinning a tail. "Xander hitting him didn't really stop him."

"I was going to soft tissue damage, less likely to get the cops called. I know better now," Xander lied said defensively.

"Not your fault." She turned back to Buffy, "So yeah, welcome to La Boca Del Infierno."

"Mouth of the sick?" Buffy asked.

"Infierno, hell, not enfermo." Faith said snickering. "It turns out high school really is hell, or at least on its doorstep. Willow can tell it better, but she has been studying magic and once she opened her inner eye, the school library creeped her out. There is apparently a dimensional week spot under the high school that connects to a hell dimension. It's probably what attracts the weird and the evil to this town."

"Okay that's just not fair," Buffy said. "It's bad enough, my boyfriend decided not to come back to California, my folks think I went off the deep end, I had to move to this small town and oh by the way, I get to go to school right next to hell! Fuck me!" Buffy ranted.

"Well, it is what it is."

"Okay fine, so you said you wanted to spar, do you still want to?"

"You're not going to hurt me are you?" Faith asked.

"I'm pissed, but I'm not pissed at you," Buffy answered.

Xander interjected, "Why don't you take some of your annoyance out on the heavy bag and then maybe spar when you've calmed down."

"I've never hit a heavy bag before."

"come on I'll show you," Faith said getting up and walking bout the back door.

The other two teens followed as Faith unlocked and turned on the lights in the two car garage. The building was a garage workshop that had been mostly converted into a dojo. She toed off her sneakers by the door and lead Buffy who had done the same, over to the corner where a heavy bag and wall mounted wooden dummy were. She grabbed a couple pair of gloves off the shelf and offered a set to Buffy.

"No reason to mess up your knuckles while you get used to it."

Xander took up position bracing the heavy bag a professional grade hundred and ten pound bag.

Faith demonstrated a few techniques and then stepped back.

"I don't know how strong you are, Buffy, but please no hits that would pin me to the wall with this." Xander requested.

"I can do that," Buffy then proceeded to kick and punch the bag bouncing from side to side finally after almost fifteen minutes, Xander called a halt. Buffy stepped back breathing hard. She put

"If you want to keep going, can I ask Faith to take over?"

"Thanks, I think I'm up for a little more controlled action."

Faith dropped down from the peg board on the wall that she'd been working her way around after she finished warming up. She walked over and grabbed a padded helmet and mouth her mouth guard. "Remember, I don't have slayer healing and I'd rather not sit down to dinner with a black eye."

They started off slow, it was obvious to Faith that Buffy was stronger and faster, but Faith was mostly able to hold her own due to superior skill, she could also tell that Buffy was going to be kicking her ass has very soon. Faith was able to throw Buffy more than once but due to the blonde's strength and speed wasn't able to pin her. If she'd been going for debilitating or deadly, she figured she had about an even chance for now. After a several minutes, she called time.

"Faith, it sure seems like you hit harder than my old watcher did."

"Well, we've been doing Hapkido since I moved here and lifting as part of being on the Cross Country team," Faith offered.

"If you say so," Buffy said skeptically.

"Well there is one other thing that might explain it, but it's just conjecture."

"What is it some weird potential thing, because I can tell you that I wasn't noticeably stronger than my friends before I became the Slayer?"

"Not really, but it does have something to do with slaying," Faith answered. "I told you that we've slain a couple dozen vampires. Well there's accounts in the Watcher's diary of how slayers get stronger as they fight more monsters. There's also accounts of what's referred to as aspect of the demon, certain creatures that if you get covered in their blood or other nastiness, you can take on some of the abilities of the demon, telepathy, telekinesis" –

"So how does this work with vampires?"

"Dust," Faith answered. "have you ever felt horny and hungry, or really restless after fighting vampires?"

Buffy blushed and looked at Xander, who held his face impassive.

"I really haven't had more than a dozen encounters with Vampires, the only time that happened was after the gym and I just figured it was the relief from being alive after fighting a master vampire and his minions."

"It probably was that at least in part," Faith assured her, "but we've noticed that when we've been up close when staking a vampire that we end up feeling really keyed up and aggressive, it could be from breathing in dust from the vamps. Thankfully going to mass seems to cleanse the worst of it, but we're both stronger and faster than the other kids on the team, something we both are trying not to show. Father Murray says that seeking the aspect of the demon is a bad thing but that we can't stop it from happening in trying to stop vamps."

"Father Murray?" Buffy asked,

"Our parish priest," Xander explained. "He started asking questions when we showed up to mass three times in one week. Not typical teenager behavior in his estimation, he provides us with holy water and blessed crosses and rosaries."

"So he knows about" –

"Apparently he and Father Romero were briefed by Rome when they took this post."

"But he knows about you?"

"He knows that this town is dangerous and he know that you can't not do something once you know."

"So who doesn't know?"

"My mom," Xander said.

"But Willow and Jesse?"

"They know," Faith confirmed. "Willow carries a cool crystal that she can store sunlight in."

"Does everybody at school know?" Buffy asked looking distressed.

"No, I mean people know not to go out alone after dark, our friends particularly, we explained one of the vampires at the Bronze as a college creep that tried to drug me," Faith answered.

"Okay," Buffy said her mind obviously spinning.

After she thought for a minute, she looked at Faith, "Were you holding back?"

"No, you've got me on strength and speed, the times I got you were on technique."

"Do you want to spar?" she asked turning to Xander.

"Okay," Xander responded, he slipped into the bathroom and put on an athletic support and cup before returning to grab his mouth guard and take the helmet from Faith.

"You don't have to pull your punches unless they're face shots," buffy told Xander. "I can heal from pretty much anything other than a broken bone in under a day."

"Okay, so no face shots and don't break anything."

Xander wasn't as strong as Buffy, but he was closer to her strength than Faith. He wasn't going to explain the Primal as that could only be explained by D'Hoffryn's interference. After the third time, Xander picked himself up off the ground for the third time, he rubbed his chest.

"we might want to invest in some chest pads for sparring," he said rubbing his sternum.

Buffy just nodded, looking a little chagrined. "So we wait for Giles to get here and then he can help me train and for whatever may come."

"Let's go inside," Faith said. "There might actually be something coming already."

"You've got to be kidding me," Buffy exclaimed.

Faith lead them inside and opened a book that was sitting on a table of the den that had been turned into the library. "if we are reading this right, she pointed out a phrase, 'They will gather and be gathered the vessel pours life while waxes the crescent moon past the solstice, Three score years captivity shall come to an end at the harvest.'"

"What does that have to do with Sunnydale and with us?"

Faith pulled a microfiche print out that a watcher had made notes on. "In 1937 there was an earthquake that caused a church to be buried, at the same time, the leader of the Order of Aurelius, a five-hundred-year old German vampire, disappeared after being sighted in Sunnydale with rumors that he was trying to open the hellmouth"

"Ugh," Buffy groaned. "Some people get casseroles, or cookies as a welcome gift, I apparently get a possible apocalypse."

"It might not mean anything, but the Watcher's journals show that either seers direct the Slayer where to go or sometimes fate moves the Slayer and it's usually to a place where they will be needed, so I looked for things that could happen around the beginning of the year."

"When does this happen?" Buffy asked,

"The crescent moon is visible from January tenth until the thirteenth, so we've got two weeks to figure out if it's happening and where," Faith said looking Buffy.

"So when does Giles get here?" Buffy said eyeing the newspaper clipping

"Tomorrow morning," Xander said looking at the calendar.

"Okay then," Buffy said. She looked around. "So is this Watcher central?"

"Yeah, Mr. Post was originally set up in the school library but turns out that that's also near the location of the hell mouth so he moved everything here."

Buffy eyed the computers, and the stereo.

"Yeah, the computers aren't the normal Watcher thing, but Willow is a bit of a hacker. And since we introduced Mr. Post to my aunt as a Latin tutor, so having resources here to do school work also helps."

"No, it's cool, having more resources is a good thing, Merrick really only had a dozen books, so more is good."

Buffy didn't say anything for a few minutes, just wandering the room and looking at things around the room.

"I'm overwhelmed, but it feels a lot less like, 'One girl in all the world,' when it sounds like you guys will be supporting me and not just in a pat on the back sort of way."

"Absolutely, the idea of a lone hunter is asinine," Faith assured here.

"Welcome to the Hellmouth," Xander offered.


End file.
